17.4 The human aspects of operations

Companies worldwide are trying to overcome autocratic, highly hierarchical and Taylorist organization concepts which cannot cope with the competitive imperatives of customization, innovation, speed, productivity and quality. Consultants can play a major part in facilitating the transition process to highperformance work systems. A consultant in operations management will have to deal with the human and technical aspects of production in an integrated manner. Furthermore, the consultant has to help the client to choose among a wide range of practices and techniques, and to effectively combine and apply those that are appropriate in a particular client context.

It is sometimes difficult for consultants to convince their clients that the traditional approach of fine-tuning subsystems without reviewing the overall organizational structure will not yield the desired success. Therefore, optimization of the aspects of operations described below should always be carried out with a view to the overall concept of production organization.

The quality issue is perhaps the best proof that the human element is the determining factor in any operation (see also Chapter 21). It would be naive to propose, let alone implement, any recommendation without the involvement of the employees concerned and without examining its impact on people. There are two major areas in operations management consultations to be considered in this respect: physical working conditions and safety improvement; and job enrichment and group work.

Physical working conditions and safety improvement

The consultant needs to pay attention to measures at the workplace to protect workers from adverse conditions of temperature, humidity, light and noise levels, as well as air contaminants, dust and radiation, exposure to which may cause poisoning or occupational diseases.12

Ideally, either hazards should be eliminated altogether or the workers should be removed from direct contact with hazardous situations. If this proves not to be feasible, then either the source of hazard should be isolated or the worker provided with protective equipment and clothing. A common mistake is to concentrate on the so-called technical aspects of accident prevention – the provision of protective gloves, boots or goggles, and guards for machinery. In most plants, however, over half of the accidents are caused more through human misjudgement and negligence than through the absence of guards or protective equipment.

The consultant can discover much revealing information by analysing past accident records for the causes of accidents, the department, hour of the day, and day of the week in which they most frequently occur, and even the person