Information technology and global developments in manufacturing: The implications for human factors input

Industrial Ergonomics ELSEVIER

International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 16 (1995) 245-262

Information technology and global developments in manufacturing: The implications for human factors input C.E. Siemieniuch *, M.A. Sinclair HUSA T Research hzstitute, Loughborough Uniz'ersity of Technology, Loughborough LE3 1RG, UK

Abstract The aim of this paper is to review some of the major changes in strategic approaches and philosophies that have emerged in many manufacturing organisations across the world and to highlight those areas where human factors can provide useful and appropriate input. The paper begins with a review of some of the strategies that manufacturing organisations are adopting to combat the various competitive pressures that are currently prevalent in the market place. The consequences of these developments and the implications and critical areas for human factors expertise and input are then discussed. The final section of the paper presents the rationale for a framework human factors strategy that would allow practitioners to address the issues raised, lists the necessary components for such a framework and discusses how it might best be implemented. Relevance to industry The paper provides a strategic view of the driving forces for organisational change in companies, and outlines a strategy for reacting appropriately to these changes. It is intended to provide a framework, by the use of which an individual company could plan its future more economically and efficiently. Keywords: Organisational change; Development strategy; Organisational overview

1. Introduction Design and M a n u f a c t u r i n g companies are facing an increasing n u m b e r of pressures in the market place, p e r h a p s the most prevalent of which is the ever-decreasing new p r o d u c t d e v e l o p m e n t cycle time, otherwise known as 'time-based competition' (Twigg and Voss, 1992) or 'accelerated

* Corresponding author. Phone: +44-1509-611088; Fax: +44-1509-234651; E-mail: [email protected]

p r o d u c t d e v e l o p m e n t ' (Crawford, 1992). For example, it has b e e n r e p o r t e d that in the a u t o m o bile industry the life cycle of a car model during p r o d u c t i o n has reduced from 5 years in the 1970's to 4 years in the 1980's and is expected to reach 3 years in the 1990's (Womack, 1989). A n o t h e r trend that has clearly e m e r g e d over the last few years is the increasing sophistication of customers, who are d e m a n d i n g a m u c h greater choice of p r o d u c t functionality at r e d u c e d cost, but of ever-increasing quality. These pressures, together with increased competition, particularly from Pa-

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cific Rim countries, a slowly receding world-wide recession, increasing legislative constraints in the environmental arena and pressures to cut manpower costs have forced manufacturing organisations to investigate a number of strategies in search of workable solutions to their problems. Some of these strategies are detailed below:

Structural changes in organisations. There is a movement away from rigid, hierarchical organisational structures towards flatter, more fluid and flexible structures, which may well be distributed on a national or international basis. Handy (1994) quotes a chief executive of Nissan Motor Manufacturing, who compares the different structures of Western and Japanese organisations by making the analogy with diamonds (crystalline structure) and mud (amorphous structure). The diamond is clear, precise and inflexible, whereas mud is easily shaped and changed and is flexible and responsive to external forces and circumstances. Cost pressures to reduce labour costs have led some organisations to adopt 'down-sizing' principles. In its pure form, this is a philosophy in which an organisation's operations and technology base are examined to establish its unique competitive advantages - its 'core competences' (Prahalad and Hamel, 1990), which are then exploited to the full with other operations being supplied to the organisation by outside groups. In other words, the organisation does only those things at which it is world-class and buys in its remaining requirements from other world-class organisations, thus ensuring its conformance with the dictates of 'total quality' (Juran, 1984).

Partnership sourcing. Down-sizing, coupled with the requirement for clean manufacturing, will require close collaboration with a wide group of service suppliers (supplying both professional and other supporting services) as well as the usual engineering suppliers and sub-contractors, in what has become known as 'Partnership Sourcing'. Here the enterprise is represented as a distributed, devolved organisational cluster of businesses, forming a federated supply chain and the emphasis is on more collaborative, open links rather than the traditional confrontational ap-

proaches that still characterise many supply chain relationships today. These new links will depend on IT-based support tools and good secure communication links as described below.

Permanent employment only for those people essential to company operations. Moves towards 'downsizing' and more flexible structures imply a move towards 'lean staffing', in which only those people essential to the operations of the organisation and its minimal functionality are retained. This has been somewhat bleakly summarised as "... half as many people in the core of [the] business in five years time, paid twice as well and producing three times as much, that is what equals Productivity and Profit ..." (Handy, 1994). Reduced staffing could lead to a 'polarisation' of the workforce into three groups: the professionals (managers, technical experts and the like) who embody the organisation's competitive edge and from whom a more flexible role is expected; a peripheral group of 'on contract' skilled staff or temporary semi-skilled staff with particular expertise, which is required on an as-and-when basis; and the supporters (office staff and the like), provided on demand from agencies. In such a grouping, it is only the first group for whom a career is planned by the organisation (e.g. Syrett, 1985; Vernon, 1985; Bell, 1993).

New manufacturing philosophies. Many new (and not so new) theories and philosophies have been promulgated over the last decade, many of them originating in Japan. These include Simultaneous Engineering (Hartley and Mortimer, 1990), Just in time or Zero Inventory (Zwangill, 1992), Flexible Manufacturing (Martin et al., 1990), Continuous Improvement (Susaki, 1987), Statistical Process Control (Juran, 1984), 'one-ofa-kind' manufacturing (Wortmann, 1992) and many others. The main thrust of most of these approaches is to accommodate the notion of devolved control of production. In contrast to the a priori, 'push-through' planning approach of MRP-II that is popular in the United States, the European emphasis has been on planning at high levels only that which needs to be planned, with detailed planning being left to the shopfloor level.

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This is a more responsive approach, emphasising fast response to developing situations, and minimising the data overhead that characterises MRP-II. This is important, as manufacturing moves from quantity production of stereotyped products for a mass market towards fast fulfilment of changing customer requirements in highly differentiated markets - so-called 'multi-niche manufacturing'. Perhaps the most pervasive of all the new approaches is that of 'Total quality management' implying not just quality control of production processes, but of all the organisation's operations: marketing, design, field service, accounting, etc. In itself, this is not new (Juran, 1984); however, the development of new ways of looking at quality (e.g. Quality Function Deployment (Akao, 1990) and design optimisation methods (Taguchi, 1986) has changed the basis of the approach. The new approach necessarily must extend well beyond statistical process control, into the control of human-based subsystems - particularly where a supply chain is involved. In the software industry this is now becoming standard practice and will eventually be enshrined in the CASE tools coming onto the market, but there is not yet the equivalent in the manufacturing area. -

'Clean' manufacture. One of the more significant trends is the world-wide, mounting concern for the environment, and the consequent, steadily increasing pressure on manufacturing organisations firstly to create products that use environmentally acceptable processes and materials throughout the life of the product, including its disposal, and secondly to prove their credentials in this. This will have a major impact on the design competence and process required to create environmentally acceptable products, and on the criteria that comprise manufacturability. This will now have to include consideration of issues such as: • energy management; 'greenhouse gas' wastes; solids and liquids pollution avoidance; accident assessment and crisis management; • disassembly, re-use or disposal of materials;

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design for pollution-avoidance, recycling and disposal; the impacts of the scale of operations and of geographical location. It is immediately evident that an integrated design process will be required that is able to take full account of the complex interactions of the product and its processes with the environment. There will be a need to provide support tools to assist in the provision of this knowledge during design, and there will be a need for the creation of networks of organisations to deal with the entire lifecycle of products. The moL'e to standards. This refers both to the proliferation of international standards such as those emanating from ISO, national standards, and the de facto standards operating within industries. There are four important areas: Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, there is a need for standards to enable communications between IT equipment and between applications. Once it becomes easy to interconnect disparate bits of equipment, it becomes possible to change radically the way in which an organisation carries out its internal business. This is the domain of the OSI 7-layer stack, and related communications standards, such as X.25, X.400 Message Handling Systems, FDDI and FieldBUS; standards to enable the portability of applications, (e.g. I S O / I E C 9945 - POSIX), and for communications between them (e.g. ISO 8571 - FTAM, I S O / I E C 9506 - MMS, and ISO 9735 - EDIFACT). Secondly, there are standards in the area of quality assurance; e.g. the ISO 9000 series. These standards qualify organisations for the quality of their processes; the intention is to reassure the customers that the quality of goods a n d / o r services that an organisation claims to be able to deliver can be achieved consistently, because the necessary internal processes and audits exist to do this - in other words, the company can do what it says it can do, consistently. Thirdly, there are the standards for what is delivered; examples are ISO 4100 (world-wide automotive parts identification codes), I S O / I E C 7813 (credit cards, cheque cards, etc.), or ISO

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4040 (location of hand controls, indicators and tell-tales for passenger cars). Fourthly, the effect of standardisation will hasten the advent of the electronic marketplace, where for example car manufacturers could browse through suppliers' databases for the most cost-effective standard components for their design requirements. This is likely to have major effects on design lifecycles, and particularly on relationships between companies in the supply chain. In this respect, an extremely important standardisation effort from the perspective of ergonomics within manufacturing is the CALS/CE initiative (Computer-aided Acquisition and Logistics System/Concurrent Engineering), developed originally by the US. Department of Defence, but now a world-wide effort (Ross, 1991).

own, usually dispersed, organisations and between organisations along the supply chain(s) to which they are linked. Significant developments in broadband communication platforms and protocols, colloquially known as 'super highways' will facilitate this need for information exchange and rapid real-time communication described above. However, this requirement for extensive communication links will also necessitate requirements for new interactive software applications such as multi-media conferencing systems, real-time interactive CAD systems, on-line suppliers catalogue (Siemieniuch, 1990). This is being driven by the recognition that efficient information management is a competitive weapon in its own right.

2. Consequences of these developments Increasing reliance on new technology and communication networks. As new technology has become available a whole vista of new C A D / C A M tools has emerged regularly onto the market e.g. Computer-Aided Draughting, Computer-Aided Design, Product Planning, Scheduling and Data Management Systems, etc. Indeed, more and more resources have been devoted to technological improvement - Kuwahara and Takeda, for example, have estimated that R & D costs for 'high technology' products will have risen to represent 30% of sales by the year 2000, compared to 10% in 1987 (quoted in Andreasson and Olesen, 1990). This refers to the introduction of microelectronics into products, developments in materials, advances in processes and tools, the implementation of appropriate application tools and, most importantly, in the technology for the management of these. Of particular significance will be tools for the management of information; acquiring, and then managing when, where, and to whom information is distributed. It is worth noting that many companies world-wide (e.g. Boeing and Airbus Industries) are moving as fast as possible to 'complete engineering' of products within their IT systems, i.e. designing, testing and simulating the manufacturing of products before design specifications are released. Organisations have recognised the need for improved communication links, both within their

It is clear that the implementation of any or all of the strategies described in the previous section will have a range of consequences for manufacturing organisations, particularly with regard to strategic planning, organisational structures and the roles of people. For example, there is no doubt that the judicious introduction and integration of IT-based tools provides the opportunity to transform the performance and the competitive edge of a company. Indeed, the company which can do this effectively may find that it has reached a position where its erstwhile competitors are no longer able to compete (Berliner and Brimson, 1988; Porter, 1990; Nagel, 1993). What can be seen in many manufacturing organisations at present is that there is a clear thread of computerised information flow from marketing through to design and thence to manufacturing and aftersales service. However, it is also clear that this is not an autonomous thread: human interaction is needed both to generate the information; to transform it; and to clear up errors, delays, and the effects of changing environments. Some of the most important effects which can be observed are listed below: The removal of intelligence from operational activities. For all their shortcomings (slow information-processing rates, susceptibility to fatigue,

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relative imprecision, variable work rates, propensity to deviate from work patterns, etc.) humans have particular advantages: they learn, they can make decisions in the light of sparse information, they can retrieve errors and other undesirable events, they can innovate and they can exercise local control in changing or unexpected environments. While the removal of human shortcomings in principle enables more effective and more flexible production of higher-quality goods to occur, this is only true while events conform to expectations, i.e. that what happens is what was planned, Thus, as fewer people are employed to carry out functions and more functions fall within the ambit of computers, so the preplanning requirements become so much greater.

The requirement for preplanning. This has been recognised, as is demonstrated by the proliferation of CAD, CAM, and CAPP tools, coupled with factory-level and cell-level schedulers. But the requirement seems never-ending - as each tool is provided to fulfil some function, another functional need seems to appear. Nowadays, considerable efforts are being devoted to simulation, and in particular process modelling, in an effort to provide better understanding and better planning of future activities. Perhaps the most succinct comments in this area are from Kimura (1993). He sees some of the key aspects of manufacturing in the future being: • inheritance of manufacturing knowledge via computers and knowledge accumulation in general; modularisation of knowledge (e.g. for transferability of knowledge and for self-organising machines); standardisation of products and production technology; • the sharing of generic knowledge; • 'virtual manufacturing' (i.e. the development of process models and the use of them both to model organisational operations and, depending on their accuracy, to control those operations), which in turn requires ubiquitous computing and networking. It will be noted that the first four items in the list are necessary for the fifth and last item. How-

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ever, a major problem for this approach is the process of incremental innovation. It takes only a few small improvements to processes, or a few changes to a design, for there to be a rapid rise in the resource requirement to keep models updated and to maintain the integrity of information. Allied to this is the problem of identifying desirable organisational configurations for the future - in a changing environment, being able to simulate the here-and-now does not ensure survival in the future.

The need to model the future. The emergence of this need has led to some questioning regarding the provision of appropriate building blocks with which to design and model organisations and rules by which this may be carried out. Enabling technologies for this which have been identified by Kimura are: Reference architectures for enterprises; The processing of manufacturing knowledge; • Tools for configuring organisational systems. Some progress in these has occurred. However, what are seriously missing are the sets of rules by which organisations can plan their future around these building blocks, make informed decisions regarding their investments in available building blocks, and ensure that a seamless, efficient organisation results (Sinclair, 1994). It should be noted here that the building blocks include workgroups; the discussion should not be restricted to the products of information technology and engineering. Even assuming appropriate building blocks can be developed, at a level that is understandable and meaningful to companies who wish to use them, there remains the problem of creating the model and comparing both the current 'as is' version of an organisation and alternative 'to be' models. The question of how to model a changing organisational environment based on so many varying and interdependent variables is a difficult one. Organisations need to be able to answer questions such as: " F o r a given organisation, with a particular culture and set of policies, operating in a particular market and possessing or contemplating a specific configuration of technology, what individuals with what skills, in what hum-

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bers, holding what roles and responsibilities do I need?" A requirement for new cost models and measures of success. To price their products and eval-

uate the efficiency of their various operations, most manufacturing companies today employ 'cost accounting' principles developed in the late 1980's (Hayes and Jaikumar, 1988). This usually involves comparing fixed and variable costs against some reference value which may be historical, budgeted or a standard objective value determined using time and motions studies, industry data, etc. It is widely accepted that these systems are largely inadequate for the 'new' manufacturing organisations of the 1990's since they provide inadequate and often misleading information to senior and middle management. What is required is a system that allows management to factor in all the costs of developing and producing a product, including the assignment of the so-called indirect or fixed costs (which often accounts for over 70% of total costs) to individual products or product groups. Today's accounting systems must move away from a preoccupation with internal cost allocations and annual budgets and look for more appropriate ways of allocating overhead costs, perhaps based on cost drivers such as machine hours, the number of parts produced, the number of customer orders or jobs scheduled. Likewise managers in industry need systems of measurement that allow them to measure improvements in performance and make comparisons with major competitors. For example, how do you measure exactly why, and how much more efficient, one type of product introduction process (i.e. one employing a team-based culture and working to simultaneous engineering principles) is, compared to a previous, functionally based team operating on a sequential engineering basis? Broader, more dynamic measuring systems are required, probably incorporating entirely new types of performance measures such as customer perceptions of quality or service satisfaction, time to launch new products or process throughput times, and new ways of combining them.

Virtual organisations. The idea behind the 'virtual organisation' or 'virtual corporation' concept, as it is sometimes termed, is that of a model of organisations that uses technology to link people, assets and ideas in a temporary organisation. The logic is as follows: if individual organisations can establish a pool of different organisations (e.g. manufacturers, project management consultants, material specialists, component suppliers, assemblers, etc.), who trust each other, in principle, it should be possible to put together any grouping of the above in order to address a window of opportunity in the market place. A good example of this would be a major international project in the aeronautics industry. The group could then be disbanded once the reason for its existence has passed (e.g. proposal is rejected or contract completed satisfactorily). For this type of temporary grouping of organisations to succeed, companies will need to create defined/standardised interfaces to each other which can be mixed and matched as required and templates to ensure appropriate matches are found. The research issue here is what are the templates and what are the interfaces? As indicated earlier, the introduction of IT into all aspects of manufacturing organisations will eventually permit engineering design to proceed within a computer environment, i.e. a 'virtual world', where the product and associated manufacturing processes are modelled and analysed on 'virtual prototypes'. In a small way this already happens in the automotive industry, e.g. F M E A analysis. Once the virtual product and processes are created they can then be passed on to the real world. Clearly this idea of virtual design and manufacturing requires ubiquitous and cost effective computing and communications links and raises a range of questions about sharing knowledge and C A D / C A M data, together with the attendant issues of security, data integrity, data compatibility, etc. It will also require changes in traditional attitudes to supply chain management as organisations will need to move away from the tendency to adversarial relationships towards more collaborative, trusting ones (Lamming, 1993).

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3. Implications for human factors input As a result of these trends and the consequences for manufacturing organisations described above, there are a number of areas where human factors will have an important role to play. These are newer areas for human factors input and are in addition to the on-going requirement for the more 'traditional' human factors work (e.g. workstation design, environmental conditions, manual handling issues, organisational and job design, etc). The need for all concerned in planning and implementing the changes described in this paper to give full consideration to human and organisational matters when contemplating change is underlined in the following extract from a Call for Proposals made under the aegis of a major European R & D Programme: " H u m a n and organisational factors must be taken into account when designing IT-based systems. The technology provided must be appropriate to the level of the users and the need for additional training must be considered. In order to maximise the flexibility and robustness of the process the skills of those involved in managing them must be maintained and enhanced. This also requires devolution of decision-making to the lowest possible level of operational responsibility. All projects which ultimately affect the way in which people work will be required to address these issues explicitly." Some of the more important of these areas are discussed below. They have been grouped under several general headings for ease of reference for the reader:

3.1. Human factors and human computer interaction (HCI) The proliferation of IT support tools, based on new technologies, in all areas of manufacturing organisations has increasingly focused attention on the need for usable and appropriate Human Computer Interfaces. Over the last few decades this has been largely the domain of psychologists and an endless source of inspiration for publications. As a result, there is a considerable body of research available, but little of it can be readily

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applied by systems designers (one major exception that is often cited is the Apple Macintosh T M interface). Largely this is caused by a separation between the theory and the practice of usercentred design for HCI. The theory tends to be the province of academics and other researchers who often have too little contact or influence with the personnel who specify and produce commercial software systems. The practice of user-centred design does occur, but is still fairly patchy. This has led to the following conclusions on the contribution of human factors by Chapanis and Budurka (1990): Human factors is not part of mainstream engineering; Human factors has no binding way to influence system development; Human factors professionals focus too narrowly on [the definition of] human requirements [to the exclusion of the technical system]; Human factors decisions are left to designers; Present guidelines and standards are too general; Present system, hardware, and software specifications are not specific about HCI requirements; Existing guidelines and standards are not testable [with respect to compliance testing]; Usability evaluation occurs too late in the development cycle. Circumstantial evidence in support of the above comes from a review of a complete volume of several relevant journals, including Behaviour and Information Technology, and International Journal of Man-Machine Systems. While there are many excellent articles in these learned journals, the number of articles which consider the design of interfaces and the context in which they are developed and used (i.e. involving a proper systems approach, reflecting experience in the field rather than the laboratory) is a small fraction of the total (approximately 5%). All too often in published work there is a dominance of theoretical human factors analysis, but only a limited amount of work on the acceptance of real IT systems in the work place. This is not to say that appropriate applied work does not exist excellent work is reported in, for example, Brod-

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ner (1987) Clegg and Symon (1989), Cooley (1987), Eason (1988), Rosenbrock (1987), Ulich (1989), Smith and Mosier (1986), Stokes and Wickens (1990), Gardener and McKenzie (1990), Salvendy (1987), Virzi (1992), Bennett and Flach (1992), and many others. The importance of correctly-designed user system interfaces must not be underestimated, since any system with a good ergonomic design will win hands-down in comparison to a badly-designed system; for example, one has only to sample preWindows MS-DOS applications compared to Windows-based applications to experience the difference that more appropriate user interfaces can make. It has been demonstrated that applying sound HCI principles can bring considerable benefits to the usability of systems (e.g. increased user efficiency, reduced user errors, improved user acceptance, reduced user training and improved user productivity. Recent advances in computer technology (and particularly the use of graphics and multimedia) have opened up a whole new range of options for the design of interfaces, which make greater use of the extensive visual information processing capabilities of humans. More applied work resulting in usable guidelines a n d / o r tools for designers needs to be undertaken. 3.2. Core competences and enterprise modelling

Consider the following quotes. All, from different viewpoints, address the importance of knowledge and skills (competences) and particularly their deployment, in creating and maintaining competitive advantage. "In the sophisticated industries that form the backbone of any advanced economy a nation does not inherit but instead creates the most important factors of production - such as skilled human resources or a scientific base. Moreover, the stock of factors that a nation enjoys at a particular time is less important than the rate and efficiency with which it creates, upgrades and deploys them in particular industries" (Porter, 1990). "Core competencies are the collective learning in the organisation, especially how to co-ordinate diverse production skills and integrate multiple streams of

technologies.... The theoretical knowledge to put a radio on a chip does not in itself assure a company the skill to produce a miniature radio no bigger than a business card" (Prahalad and Hamel, 1990). "Flexible design and production systems require flexible people. Even with extensive automation, design and production activities are essentially human-centred. In a high-wage, information-based enterprise, people are paid for their intelligence and creativity. Management must empower the individual to undertake continuous improvement, and reward initiative and creativity. The company's key asset is misused if management allow the creativity of its workforce to be under-utilised, or the accumulated knowledge to be dissipated" (Hockley, 1990). The importance of being able to optimise the deployment of these competences and skills is evident. In turn, this points to the need to be able to model the enterprise in order to be able to explore different configurations of skills and competences (whether they be held in human heads or in knowledge-based systems), to find organisational structures that hold promise for the future competitiveness of the enterprise. This is a crucial aspect and opens many avenues of investigation for human factors practitioners. As many authors (e.g. Badaracco, 1990; Beale, 1986; Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Hayes and Jaikumar, 1988; Hockley, 1990; Jaikumar, 1986; Myers and Davids, 1992; Nonaka, 1991; Porter, 1990; Prahalad and Hamel, 1990; Siemieniuch and Sinclair, 1993; Sinclair, 1986, 1992; Yoshikawa, 1992) have indicated, these knowledge and skills can be categorised either as explicit knowledge, or as tacit knowledge. In the case of the former, it is usually technical knowledge that can be built into machines, processes, products, and procedures. Tacit knowledge, on the other hand, comprises the skills and expertise that ensure that the technical knowledge is marshalled and used effectively; neither can be effective in isolation. It is the willingness of some companies to recognise the importance of explicit knowledge (i.e. technology) and exploit it to the full, without comprehending the importance of tacit skills (typically knowledge and expertise held by the workforce) that has led them to investments in CIM that have never

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achieved the benefits sought. Perhaps the bestknown example of this is the efficiency of GM's Nummi plant compared with other, more highlyautomated plants in which millions of dollars have been invested. The two kinds of knowledge are interdependent, and the deployment of both in the organisation is critical to effective solutions. To put it differently - people will not operate effectively if they do not have a conceptual model of the system in which they are working, if they do not have appropriate responsibilities and authority, and if they do not have the required skills and tools to apply their knowledge. They receive information from different sources and must be able to understand their own relationship to these sources, to evaluate the information being received, and execute the appropriate form of response. However, developments in modelling organisations appear to neglect human factors almost completely. Modelling efforts have been driven mainly by the requirements of IT systems designers, concerned more with the infrastructures of the IT systems and the communications implications of these infrastructures, rather than the human infrastructures and their particular communications requirements. Furthermore, the representations of these models have been so abstract that it is almost impossible for them to be understood by the people directly affected. 3.3. Communications It is fair to say that the study of communications has been almost purely technical, based on the ISO model. The cognitive elements of communications seem to have been ignored in spite of the fact that human communication is fundamental to the efficient operation, and evolution, of the organisation. For example, the amount and diversity of information conveyed by the symbols in an engineering drawing is enormous, albeit containing substantial redundancies and inconsistencies. Nevertheless it is a potent, highly mobile, human-oriented, means of communication with its own formal language whose significance is often overlooked. Other examples exist: what constitutes a lea-

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ture for a designer in the process of design may be seen differently by a process engineer working out how to make it, and may be different again to the shopfloor personnel responsible for producing it. In short, the semantics of factory communications are an unexplored area where it is likely that significant improvements to operations are potentially available, particularly with regard to the presentation and layout of this type of information in the rapidly emerging IT-based systems currently appearing in industry. Another area that will need further investigation is the area of human protocols for on-line multimedia interactive communication. Will different control software be required to support individuals in co-operative vs. negotiative situations? What is the real requirement for face-toface video in on-line, real-time conferencing environments? How to eliminate the Hollywood Syndrome (unnatural behaviour on video)? etc. For real time Computer Supported Co-operative Working (CSCW) to be effective these issues must be resolved, or users will not gain the full benefit from the support tools provided and the degree and efficiency of co-operative working will fall rapidly. Siemieniuch (1994b) provides a discussion on this issue. Further investigation is required to establish whether existing verbal and non-verbal control protocols currently used in face-to-face meetings will be sufficient in a multi-media working environment or whether special software and hardware controls will be needed. For example, is it necessary for a conferencing system to provide a computer mediated method of passing control in an interactive graphics session or will established human protocols of 'turn taking' be sufficient to permit efficient interaction? Recent work in this area (Joyner and Parker, 1995) would seem to indicate that if these systems are used by 'experts' in order to solve a defined technical problem at a technical level, then no additional control software may be necessary. However, it is not clear that conferences with less well-defined or even conficting goals will be conducted with the same degree of harmony and politeness. A final point worth considering in this section is whether the use of face-to-face video will add

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enough in terms of improved effectiveness and efficiency to justify its current high cost in terms of bandwidth and money. Video as a communication medium seems to be most useful to the end user as a means of transmitting images of text and solid objects and of less use for face-to-face contact, other than establishing a social context within which to work. However, as technology improves and costs reduce, the role of face-to-face video will undoubtedly evolve. One interesting aspect worth highlighting is the increased use of video for face-to-face contact when conferences are held between mixed language groups. Just as in 'real life' it is probable that, during a conference situation, conferees will need to be able to study the video image of someone speaking either with a strong accent or in a foreign language. Given the diversity of cultures across Europe, this point should not be underestimated.

3.4. Education and training As emphasised above, there is no doubt people will remain the most important components of competitive manufacturing organisations. It is not just the presence of people that is important, but the knowledge and skills that they bring to, and apply in, their daily work. There is a clear requirement that the provision of a pool of skilled human resources is a fundamental requirement for a successful, competitive manufacturing sector. In several countries there is a trend for students in secondary and tertiary education to gravitate towards arts and social sciences rather than engineering and the natural sciences. This will affect the pool of skilled labour available to manufacturing companies and is a trend not easily changed by governments. One consequence of this is that companies which do not respond to these predictable skill shortages may find that their employees lack the skills necessary to use new technologies to advantage, with the consequent loss of competitiveness. The provision of 1T-based tools to enable companies to augment the training resources available to them, both locally and nationally will be a prime requirement. In all major trading blocks this will become

doubly important in the context of the removal of trade barriers and in the light of the diversity of the education and vocational training systems that exist within these blocks. Finally, the increasing investment in new products, processes and information technologies will increase the pressure for asset utilisation and return on capital employed within manufacturing companies. This increase will also change capit a l / l a b o u r ratios and will heighten companies' dependence on the critical skills vital to the successful use of these new technologies. The more effective responses (PA Consultants, 1989) will include: specifying and choosing new technologies that fit well with the evolving human and organisational capabilities of the company; extending working time to increase asset utilisation; analysing carefully the future workforce requirements of new technologies; reorganising work so that the utilisation of technology is made more effective by broadening the skills of individuals (task integration), and by building a greater number of technical activities into the shopfloor production team (team integration). It is clear that there is huge scope in this area for a viable human factors contribution, particularly in the areas of organisational and job design and training needs analysis.

3.5. Cultural and policy issues As organisations become more global cultural and language issues need to be taken into account more and more. As Kanoi (1991) has stated, based on his experience in the Sony Corporation: " T h e most difficult issues confronting production control today concern the globalisation of factory locations .... This need has grown from a number of factors including fluctuations in market demand, increasing logistics costs, and risks due to unstable exchange rates .... Against the backdrop of internationalisation .... the communication gap between people of different nations, different lifestyles and ways of thinking - this whole question has become the key issue". Europe, as a

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particular example, will always be characterised by its diversity of regions, cultures and languages and, notwithstanding treaties and single markets, these differences will remain. In manufacturing, they lead to different organisational philosophies and different working practices and, because these arise from cultural norms, they will be persistent and will require considerable training before changes become accepted. It is also important to recognise that any new tools or methods that may be developed will be used in different organisational cultures. Usually the design of interfaces between the tool and its environment, including its human users, involves assumptions about the organisation's culture as it is expressed in its procedures, and the knowledge, skills, authority, and roles of the users. The assumptions may be well-hidden from the likely users, but they are there. What is particularly undesirable is that tools should be developed which are predicated on one particular culture (that of the tool developers) which then require considerable, specific training and possible restructuring of jobs in certain other cultures, because they do not fit the norms of that culture. This represents a misdirection of resources, both on the part of the project partners, and the eventual users, and is a waste. This is likely to be of particular importance to certain kinds of tools (particularly those which are proposed for workgroups), and is an aspect that should be carefully considered during the design and development phase. There are several important policy issues which will have a direct impact on human and organisational factors. Two in particular are discussed here: reward structures and individual consultation and representation. With regard to wage structures the current norm for industry is still based on the concept of wage structures predicated on a clear division of tasks and levels of skill and productivity. However, as new ways of working spread through manufacturing, so there will need to be revisions to this norm if people are to be properly rewarded for their efforts, and if the organisation is to achieve its goals (see for example Caulkin and Ingersoll Engineers, 1989; Hirschorn, 1984; Majchrzak, 1988c,d; PA Consul-

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tants, 1989; Ulich, 1989). The growth of the concept that the unit of human work is no longer the individual but the workgroup means that the nature of the reward systems will have to reflect this change of emphasis. A current trend is towards payment for individuals based on the performance of the workgroup as a unit, combined with a recognition of the particular skills that the individual brings to the workgroup. The requirement for greater workforce participation and representation in the decision making process, can be traced to greater affluence and higher levels of education, particularly in Western and Asian countries. The amount and quality of consultation is, however, highly dependent on the degree of trade union representation and the presence or absence of consultative works councils (perhaps with representation in supervisory boards, as in Germany). In the last decade there has been a significant reduction in the power and influence of trade unions, thereby creating something of a gap in the consultative process. This has coincided with the ever-growing need for organisations to maintain their competitive edge by ensuring that their personnel are aware of and committed to the change process and are motivated, efficient and dynamic. Consequently, issues of consultation and representation are of critical importance to manufacturing industry for long-term competitiveness. A corollary to this is that there should be the means for any consultation mechanisms in place to discuss the future organisation and structure of the company and the provision of tools for this purpose (e.g. enterprise modelling techniques). It is a foolish organisation which implements new systems with their concomitant organisational effects without some degree of consultation.

3.6. Standards and standardisation of working practices and processes The importance of standards which enable information exchange between different systems, or which impact on quality assurance of what is produced, or which set recognisable standards for products, was discussed earlier in this paper. One

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area where there remains a great deal of work to be done is in the generation and dissemination of human factors standards. An enormous amount of effort has already been devoted to this, and the result is a range of standards which are largely directed towards the office environment or specialised environments such as control rooms or the military. Examples of these are: ISO 9241, 1992 Ergonomic requirements for office work with visual display terminals (VDTs); 9 0 / 2 7 0 / E E C Directive on the minimum safety and health requirements for work with display screen equipment; EPRI-NP-3659 Human factors guide for nuclear power plant control room development; D E F STAN 00-25 Human Factors for Designers of Equipment, Issue 1. Parts 1 to 12; STANAGS 4420 Display symbology and colours for NATO, MIL-STD-1472 D 1974 Human Engineering Design Criteria for Military Systems Equipment and Facilities, Washington DC (US Department of Defence). Interest is now being directed at processes as well. The importance of the supply chain in manufacturing has been recognised, as has the importance of standards in this area. Perhaps the most significant development (anon-human-factors one) is the CALS initiative, originally started by the US Department of Defence, but now a global initiative, and latterly called 'Computer-aided Acquisition and Logistics Support'. This initiative currently comprises a batch of standards, enabling customers and suppliers in the supply chain to administer the entire life cycle of the product electronically, be it a bullet or a battleship. Because of the enormous advantages in speed, flexibility, accuracy, reliability, and cost reductions that are perceived in this approach, it is being adopted more and more by industry generally. However, the full benefits will not be realised unless issues such as 'good manufacturing practice' and 'due diligence' are addressed as well; for this to work properly, there must be common understanding of terms, functions and methods and skills and training and procedures. It is in these areas that standards and guidelines will have to be developed next. The imminence of this need has already been seen in Europe, as is shown by the emergence of a new standards

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committee, I S O / T C 310, with responsibility for standards in 'Advanced Manufacturing Technology'. WG 4 of this committee deals with ergonomics issues, and the needs discussed above are on its agenda, and it proposes to hold a Workshop in which these issues will be discussed during 1995.

4. Conclusions In order to tackle the issues raised in this paper, there is a need for human factors practitioners to develop generic, usable methodologies and tools that can be implemented, wholly or in part, at appropriate stages of change planning and implementation. The first part of this section presents a potential framework for such a strategy. However, it is also important to consider how such a strategy could be developed and resourc,ed and the final part of the paper offers some suggestions to this effect.

4.1. Components" of a human factors strategy The fundamental principle of any human factors strategy is that it is based on user-centred design principles and that it allows for the input of ergonomics expertise at all stages of the design and build process. Fig. 1 depicts the areas a human factors strategy will need to address. As a minimum the following steps will need to be incorporated into the strategy: (i) User centred or user led design. All project teams should have a coherent strategy for involving users at all stages as far as is reasonably possible. Users need to feel that they have had a realistic input and that to a certain extent they 'own' the system under consideration. Conversely project teams will need to ensure a strong commitment from a selected group of users over the duration of the project. Formal measures need to be put into place to facilitate this. (ii) Stakeholder analysis. Stakeholder analysis identifies those individuals and groups who have a legitimate 'stake' in the new system, pinpoints the requirements for interaction with the system

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that these individuals or groups will have and identifies the scenarios (e.g. circumstances of use) with which the new system is to be designed to cope. The word system here means more than just the computer hardware and software. It means all the components - humans and computers - working together to achieve a set of identifiable goals. (iii) User requirements specification. The purpose of this analysis is to gain an in-depth understanding of the main requirements, constraints and variables of both current and proposed organisational systems. The most appropriate means of identifying this information is via group a n d / o r individual discussions with key 'core' operators or stakeholders and strategic planners. The result will be the identification, as early as possible, of crucial roles and key tasks to be carried out. (ic) Detailed task analysis. Once a firm understanding of the context for the development of a new system is obtained it is necessary to carry out a further set of in-depth interviews with 'key' stakeholders, to identify in more detail the components of those tasks which are considered to be critical. The interviews are used to gain a description of the activities and data, control and information flows considered to be critical, which can then be represented graphically using various action diagramming techniques or on-line tools that are available.

(u) Allocation of function between technology and humans, The orthodox approach to this problem is to automate what can be automated and whatever cannot be mechanised is left for human operators to do. This method of attack, counter to what has been written by many human factors specialists, does have a considerable amount of logic behind it. In general, technology can be made to do a great many things faster, more reliably, and with fewer errors than people can do them. These considerations and the high cost of human labour make it reasonable to mechanise everything that can be mechanised. However, it is also essential to ensure that the jobs left over for human operators are within human capabilities and make the best use of human skills and knowledge in combination with the technology available. This means that alloca-

tion of function issues are central to the design of systems where humans and technology act symbiotically. The creation of a functional view of an organisation and the identification of competences required to carry out these functions would seem to offer a new perspective on the allocation of function issue (Siemieniuch and Sinclair, 1994a,b).

(el) Definition of roles and organisational structures. As the design of the new system progresses and the functional specification emerges, the impact of the new system on roles and organisational structures and policies must be taken into account. New roles and responsibilities may need to be defined, job design issues considered and requirements for additional training identified. In addition new policies and working practices may be required, which in turn can impact on the design of the new system.

(t,ii) HCI input to the design of the system. Clear provision needs to be made to allow human factors expertise and HCI principles to be made available as required. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is in the design of user interfaces to 1T support tools, where existing and emerging human factors guidelines and standards (e.g. on information presentation and formatting, use of multi-media techniques, knowledge of human cognitive processing limitations, equipment and workstation design, etc.) will be crucial. (viii) Validation and eualuation. Iterative validation of any data collected is vital to ensure that any options selected are worthwhile, representative and relevant to the needs of a future system. Validation can be by peer group agreement, expert judgement, internal logical consistency, prototyping, etc. What is important is that it happens in an iterative fashion throughout the design cycle. A representative range of end users must be closely involved at all points and both formal and informal procedures need to be established to facilitate this. Evaluation of the design as it emerges is also important - using both expert and user-based techniques. It is also critical to ensure the evaluation of the emerging system allows timely feedback into the design process. (ix) Implementation. A coherent implementa-

C.E. Siemieniuch, M.A. Sinclair/International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 16 (1995) 245-262

tion strategy must be drawn up prior to implementation. It should consider aspects such as integration with existing systems, training requirements, changes in working practices or policy, information dissemination, changes to workstation or office layout, etc. However it should be emphasised that all these issues should have already been considered in terms of their potential implications for the design of a new system - at this stage it is the actual implementation logistics that are important. 4.2. Implementing the strategy

One way of ensuring that the type of strategy described above could be developed and implemented would be to establish a series of interconnected human factors networks around the world. Specific goals would need to be established for the networks, either as a whole or for individual clusters. An example set is provided below: to assist any organisation in the design and manufacturing domains to address properly the full range of human and organisational issues when change is contemplated; to provide advice a n d / o r assistance in evaluating human and organisational aspects of usage and health and safety issues for any new or emerging product of change (i.e. methods, software, devices, actual products etc.); to accumulate, integrate and disseminate human factors knowledge and practice in an appropriate format for a range of potential users (e.g. human factors practitioners, systems designers, management consultants, standards bodies, R & D funding organisations, trade associations, individual organisations, education and training establishments, etc.); to support major funding bodies, e.g. European Commission, NIST in USA, MITI in Japan, in their aim to ensure that the user and organisational dimensions are a fundamental driving force in all research projects. Having identified its goals, any network would then need to define the network structure, capabilities, knowledge and skills required to meet these goals. Assuming lhe network is up and

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running, it will need to perform both the internal functions of co-ordinating and administrative activities and external functions of providing a range of services to clients. An example set of functions could include the following: Develop a n d / o r integrate new and existing human factors tools and methods into a form usable by both expert practitioners and user organisations themselves. Co-ordinate approaches to human factors issues within and between organisations and work programmes to (a) prevent re-invention of the wheel, (b) to ensure the complete range of human and organisational factors is addressed, and (c) to provide integrated and appropriate outputs to outside bodies. Produce a generic design strategy that ensures human factors are considered at all stages of the design process. This to include (a) when human factors is included, (b) what human factors knowledge is critical, and (c) how and by whom (i.e. experts or users themselves) the input should be provided. Produce a Training Needs Analysis strategy that ensures that the right people with the right skills are available to use the systems being developed. Disseminate new, applied Human Factors knowledge that emerges (e.g. standardised methods, new empirical research, etc.) to practising human factors practitioners or groups who have a vested interest in this domain, e.g. standards bodies, R & D programme planners. This may involve the creation of a human factors information marketplace, e.g. human factors on Internet. Disseminate human factors knowledge in general to SME's, academia, educational and training establishments, etc., in a usable form. This may take the form of distance learning techniques, human factors guidelines, newsletters, new modules in university courses, etc. Provide tools to enable a meaningful c o s t / b e nefit analysis to be performed on the use of human factors tools and techniques in order to establish more clearly the 'value added' components of considering human and organisational issues.

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Obviously this sort of a network(s) will require funding. Depending on the size and location of the network, funding could be requested from national government sources, regional R & D funds such as the European Commission or international funds such as those available under the IMS proposals.

4.3. Summary The main thrust of this paper has been to identify new trends in manufacturing organisations which have resulted in new domains of interest for human factors practitioners and where human factors input could prove a vital component in the design and implementation of new systems and in the whole area of planning and implementing change. As has been emphasised throughout this paper, the traditional areas for human factors input have not been diminished in any way, but in the future this role must develop and expand to include the impact of new technology on human cognitive processing and hence user interface design, the nature and integrity of information to be managed, the identification of core competences against activities to be carried out, cultural and organisational structural issues and the impact of external variables such as legislation, economic change and movements in education and training. All too often in the past, the design of IT systems has been based on technical feasibility rather than concentrating on the development of a system to meet the needs and capabilities of end users and the organisational context within which the system is to be used. For any changes to the existing environment technical issues were usually considered first, users were often considered peripheral to the task and relied upon to provide the flexibility and adaptability necessary to operate within the changed environment. This resulted in systems which did not necessarily match the needs of users, the tasks they had to perform, or the organisational context in which they were to be used. It would seem that the pendulum has now begun to swing in the opposite direction and that organisations are rapidly becoming aware of the sorts of human and organ-

isational issues described in this paper. It is up to the human factors profession to ensure that it is able to respond to this need in an appropriate, coherent and efficient manner.

Acknowledgements This paper is based on work carried out over a series of collaborative projects in which the H U S A T Research Institute has been involved, the most relevant of which are: R1079 CAR ( C A D / C A M in the Automotive Industry in RACE) and R2112 SMAC (Suppliers and Manufacturers in Automotive Collaboration), both funded under the CEC RACE programme; P6599 E A G L E (European Advanced Global Logistics for Enterprises) funded under the CEC ESPRIT programme; and SIMPLOFI (Simultaneous Engineering through People, Organisations and Functional Integration) funded jointly by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Department of Trade and Industry in the United Kingdom. The authors would like to thank their colleagues and other partners on these projects for all their help and co-operation.

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