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APPENDIX 9.1 225

>> ROBIN JOHNSTON: PRODUCTION SCHEDULER
In a few minutes, you will be attending a meeting of a working group chaired by
Alex Rheingold (your MD) to discuss the possible adoption of an ERP system
in Oakland. The meeting will include a consultant’s presentation and then there
will be a further meeting to take a decision. You are a time-served craft worker,
and everyone knows you have excellent intuitive judgement about scheduling
and keeping things running smoothly in the factory. They all depend on you.
You know all there is to know about wood (a naturally variable material) and
its production. Your main task is to ensure that enough of the correct furni-
ture parts are available so that complete assemblies can always be made up from
the machined parts store. The assembly kits are made up to meet firm customer
orders first, subject to a minimum batch of 25. If the order is for less than 25, the
balance goes into the finished goods store. You have what seems to outsiders an
uncanny memory for everything that is in the finished goods store and are rarely
wrong. This provides a considerable measure of influence in running operations
and you know that your boss, Jan Pettigrew (the Operations Director), very much
relies on your skills in this regard. The task of remembering exactly what is in
the machined parts store is, however, altogether more formidable: the company
produces some 400 products requiring more than 20,000 separate parts. Many
of these are left- or right-hand versions of the same piece, which often (but not
always) go together in pairs (e.g. table legs). To further complicate matters, due
to the particular difficulties of machining and matching wood, there is usually
quite a high rate of rejects. This means that although you might have started out
making 100 left- and right-hand pairs you could easily end up with 96 of one and
91 of the other. Ensuring that enough of the appropriate parts are available for the
assembly kits is a major problem. To make life even more difficult, Jan Pettigrew
always attempts to meet the Financial Director’s control target of $60,000 worth
of production per day. To achieve this, the bigger batches are progressed ahead
of the smaller ones. These then sit on your shop floor somewhere until eventually
someone comes down from Sales chasing up an irate customer’s late order. By this
time, it is more than likely that the assembly kit has been raided for some piece to
replace a damaged part for another assembly, hence leading to further delays.
OK, so you know there are a few problems but nothing you can not handle. And
what is this new IT system going to do to your job? You know that Jan Pettigrew is
a little bit unhappy over the undoubted influence you enjoy because of your special
skills and central role. Is this a ploy to undermine your position? Even if it is not, it
is certainly going to change what you do. The computer system will issue the order
releases and make your judgement redundant. What will there be left for you to do?

>> JEAN LAMONT: SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR
In a few minutes, you will be attending a meeting of a working group chaired by
Alex Rheingold (your MD) to discuss the possible adoption of an ERP system
in Oakland. The meeting will include a consultant’s presentation and then there

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