Most work is complex enough that it is subdivided into tasks performed at different stages, so that different people and/or departments must interact with each other to complete the work. Work design is about the coordination of these interactions creating an organization. Lean is about achieving operational excellence. Therefore, the first step towards a Lean Work Design is to create a work design that allows individuals within the system to achieve operational excellence.
Designing the structure which determines how people will interact with each other while they perform the tasks that are needed to complete work is a complex task in itself. Even simple tasks require the support of a system to be effective.
For example, if a department store offers free gift wrapping to customers, the manager has to decide where this will be done, what equipment is needed to do it and how this equipment should be positioned in the shop. These are decisions on the physical structure of the company.
The manager also has to decide on the structure of the management system. This includes what supplies are needed, when the gift wrapping station will be staffed and the level of staffing, should there be standard boxes and standard bow designs etc. Further, the manager has to decide on the actual job description; i.e. how the tasks or operations will be performed.
Finally, the company is depended on knowledge and information processing to support the actual production process. Therefore, the manager has to decide how knowledge and information is integrated in the company; i.e. through horizontal integration as teams or vertical integration as hierarchies.
Summarizing, work design is concerned with the design of a system and the design of all of the interacting elements within the system that are needed to accomplish work. The work design is a fundamental set of decisions which determine what processes are in place. These processes in turn affect the behaviors of departments and individuals in the organization and ultimately determine the organization’s productivity. It is through these decisions on physical structure, managerial system, job design and knowledge & information integration that the executives influence the decisions of everyone else in the organization.
Key Definitions
Information & Knowledge Integration
All work design answers how one task is to be coordinated with another task and how activities are to respond to variance in the environment and within the system. An important step to do this is to answer the question of how the different elements and knowledge sources within an organization are aligned to the common objective - to better serve the customer at minimum buffer cost.
Work design must include not only consideration of how particular tasks are performed but also the context within which these tasks are to be performed. This requires managers to learn about the process and let this knowledge guide the process design. It is increasingly apparent that knowledge is a critical input into production processes and that more production processes require the application of multiple types of specialized knowledge (e.g. Bohn, 1994; Grant, 1996), so an important role of the firm is the integration of information and knowledge. For example, Gailbraith (1977) established that the appropriate choice of an organization design depends on the amount of uncertainty in its environment and in its system and consequently how much information processing is required to complete its tasks. Tushman & Nadler (1978) further developed this understanding arguing that an organization designer has to find an appropriate match between the information processing requirements to complete a set of tasks and the information processing capacity provided in the company.
Further, lean work design has to ensure that data and knowledge are at the right time at the right place for data to become information (i.e. meaningful) and to support informed decision taking.
Physical Structure
Following Hayes & Wheelright (1984) decision on the physical structure of a company comprise four dimension:
Facility: Number of shops, shop size, shop location and degree of product focus.
Technology: Type of equipment and degree of automation and integration.
Capacity: When, where, which and how much capacity should be available.
Vertical Integration: Extend of company-wide integration of production steps required to produce a product.
Management System
Also based on Hayes & Wheelright (1984), decision on the management system can be categorized in the following dimension:
Visual Control: Degree to which visual control is in place - e.g. be means of 5S.
Quality: Means to ensure that products, processes and people operate to specification - e.g. by means of Total Quality Management.
Maintenance: Degree to which maintenance policies and practices are followed - e.g. by means of Total Productive Maintenance.
Production Planning Control: Production planning and control system applied, including concepts as "pull" and "just-in-time" - Workload Control presents a key solution for small and medium sized make-to-order companies.
Material Control: Degree of computerization and centralization of material control.
Organization: Type of organizational culture, leadership and hierarchy levels.
Workforce: Extend of training and involvement of the workforce.
Performance Measurement: When, where and which kind of performance measures are collected and used.
New product development: Mechanism to ensure innovation and allow for coping with the variance introduced by this decision.
Suppliers: Position and relationship within the supply chain.
Electronic Data Interchange: For example, degree to which a company is connected into the world-wide-web.
Job Description
A job description bases on a job analysis. The objective is to create a detailed description of the best way to complete a task. This allows e.g. for the transfer of this knowledge. Creating a job description is a process of continuous improvement - continuously improving the way the task is performed itself.
Variability and Buffers
All variability in a production system is somehow absorbed by three buffers: (i) an inventory buffer, e.g. in the form of safety stocks; (ii) a capacity buffer, e.g. extra capacity to accommodate surges in demand; and (iii) a lead time buffer, which requires a flow time allowance to compensate for production variability (e.g. Galbraith, 1977; Goldratt & Cox, 1984; Hopp & Spearman, 2004).
Lean Work Design
Work is defined as “physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something” (American Heritage College Dictionary, p. 1554). Work design is the design of the system with all of its interacting elements to accomplish work (e.g Sinha & Van de Ven, 2005). Integrating this definition with our definition of lean - the key to lean production is protecting throughput from variability at minimal buffer cost (e.g. Ohno, 1988; Hopp & Spearman, 2004) - lean work design can be defined as the design of an integrated socio-technical system with all of its interacting elements to accomplish work and better serve the customer at minimum buffer cost.
Performance Frontiers
Following Schmenner & Swink (1998) and Vastag (2000), there are two performance frontiers which bound the performance of a company: the operating frontier and the asset frontier. The performance of a company is originally bound by its operating frontier, i.e. its management system (its policies and procedure). While the operating frontier itself can be moved or changed by changes in the management system it is itself bound by the asset frontier. Changes in the asset frontier itself require radical technology upgrades or replacements.
Within the performance space three types of improvement can be identified:
movement towards the operating frontier which can be achieved without any change in management system or physical structure;
change in the management system in a way that moves or changes the operating frontier; and
investment in physical structure to move the asset frontier.
The concept of performance frontiers allows a company to guide its improvement efforts towards a lean work design. If a company is far away from its operating frontier many slack resources exist. Lean work design should aim to eliminate unnecessary slack resources e.g. through 5S, Total Productive Maintenance or Total Quality Management. Through the improvement the company approaches its operating frontier. Following the law of diminishing returns, more resources must be expended in order to achieve each additional increment of benefit. In order to gain further improvements changes in the management system are required (i.e. extending Total Productive Maintenance or Total Quality Management activities) to move or change the operating frontier. Through this change, a company may be again far off its operating frontier and unnecessary slack resources have to be eliminated. Finally, the closer the company gets to the asset frontier the more resources must be expended in order to achieve each additional increment of benefit. Therefore further benefits can only achieved by investment in physical structure i.e. by moving or changing the asset frontier.
Theory of Swift and Even Flow
The Theory of Swift and Even Flow says that the more swift and even the flow of materials through the process, the more productive that process is (e.g. Schmenner & Swink, 1998). Materials can move more swiftly only if there are no bottlenecks or other impediments to the flow. Materials can move more evenly if variability in demand and/or the process is reduced. Consequently, the reduction of impediments to the flow and variability is the most important objectives of a lean work design.
To simplify the description of lean work design, it helps to visualize the work design along two dimensions – the flow of work and supportive actions which support this flow. The supportive dimension includes actions to reduce impediments to the flow (as high inventory and machine break downs) and variability through the layers of management and other suppliers of services to those who actually create the value added that the customer pays for. This dimension is important to the degree to which it helps the front line add value for the customer creating a swift and even flow of work. In this context, value is what the customer is willing to pay for.
Workload Control is a production planning and control concept designed to ensure a swift and even flow. For example, its order release mechanism integrates two elements: one responsible for load balancing to ensure an even flow of work and one responsible for starvation avoidance to ensure a swift flow of work.