Model of Radical Changes and Introduction of Discrete Production

Management System

Evgeny Abakumov

Department of Information Technology, All-Russia Research Institute of Automatics, Moscow, Russia

Department of Applied Phisics, National Nuclear Research University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute),

Moscow, Russia

Keywords: Instrument-making Industrial Production, Production Plan, Organizational Changes, John Kotter’s Model.

Abstract: This article describes the information system of the discrete type production management and its

implementation using the model of radical changes by J. Kotter. The need for organizational changes is caused

by the necessity of a deep transformation of business processes of discrete production in the light of significant

changes in the modern information technology. These changes offer great opportunities for improving the

efficiency of enterprises in their main area of activity. However, the resistance of the staff changes makes it

necessary to find solutions to overcome it.

1 PROBLEM STATEMENT

Discrete production, when serial and pilot production

are combined, as well as wide range of products, has

a number of features in terms of automation. These

features include the need for dynamic change of

production plan based on the changes in

documentation and terms of delivery of components

and materials; the need for management decision-

making under conditions of uncertainty at various

levels of management; the need to improve the

efficiency of production process and implementation

of operational management systems. The emergence

of modern concepts and systems in the area of

information technology, especially the Internet, of

items and systems for supporting management

decisions opens up new horizons for improving the

efficiency of processes. Note that the complexity of

business has significantly increased in the recent

years, and the rate of these changes is also increasing.

Information technology can help manage the

complexity of business or bring additional

complexity, which can be caused, inter alia, by the

behavior of the staff while performing the new

solutions in the field of management (Mocker, 2015).

Features of organizational behavior in case of

need for using of new information technology require

the application of modern concepts of performing

organizational changes. These concepts include both

classic ones, like the model by Kurt Lewin and

Canter, and more modern, such as the model by John

Kotter (Kotter, John P, 1996, 2014). Thus, today the

problem of efficient transformation of processes

using modern information technology lies, inter alia,

in the area of using technology for conducting

organizational changes.

2 WAYS TO SOLVE THE

PROBLEM

Considerable attention is given in present-day papers

to virtual organizations and respective support for

transformation of organizations into virtual form

(Thimm, 2008). However, organizational difficulties

and specific features of organizational behavior of

emerging market participants lead to the necessity of

maintaining processes at classical enterprises and

nondecreasing relevance of MES class systems

implementation. The European countries discuss the

issues post-implementation stage of using

information systems (Hasheela, 2015).

Discrete manufacturing requires a series of

information solutions. Consider one of the levels of

information systems of this type: job of foreman and

workers directly. The purpose of the information

system is operational planning, information support

of foreman concerning the distribution of

Abakumov, E.

Model of Radical Changes and Introduction of Discrete Production Management System.

DOI: 10.5220/0006349004830486

In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2017) - Volume 2, pages 483-486

ISBN: 978-989-758-248-6

483

manufacturing tasks throughout the work centers, and

collection and accounting of feedback from working

stations on implementation of the production process.

The transition from manual data processing to

information systems that involve the information on

the status of equipment causes considerable

difficulties for the manufacturing staff, which

manifests itself in resistance to the introduction of the

system. This resistance is expressed in erroneousness

input of information, intentional damage to the

monitoring equipment, blackmail concerning

impossibility of performing the manufacturing

functions using the system. The complexity of the

implemented business process increases not only due

to modification caused by the need to respond to

external changes, but also due to disturbances caused

by the organizational behavior of its members. Thus,

it is needed to manage the process of change in the

implementation and development of information

management system and to reduce the influence of

organizational behavior through the use of change

management techniques. Undoubtedly, this is not the

only factor and a number of other aspects has been

considered by the author previously (Abakumov,

2014, 2015)

Change model by J. Kotter contains a number of

stages: creating a sense of urgent need for change;

establishing a group of people to manage changes;

developing vision and strategy, communication for

communicating the information; authorizing to

achieve quick results; consolidating the gains, and

new approaches in the corporate culture. This article

describes a case study on management of

organizational change in large companies in the

implementation of the production management

system on the lower level of production process

management at the stage after the implementation of

a common resource management system.

3 MANAGEMENT OF

ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES

AT PRODUCTION SITE LEVEL

The production area in question has the following

parameters: there are about 20 workers and 1

foreman, they maintain more than 50 pieces of

equipment in shifts. Manufacturing automation is a

resource-demanding task that requires coordinated

work of a group of analysts and programmers, which

number is limited to the enterprise staff. In addition,

necessary condition for successful implementation of

the automated system (AS) is also a desire and

readiness of the employees to work with the

automated system. Besides, for the AS operation it is

often required to modify business processes.

Figure 1: Operations dispatching.

Due to all above-said an iterative approach was

applied to the AS development, i.e. the automated

system modules were developed and implemented by

turns. Implementation of one module and connection

of users to it led the latter to understanding and desire

to transfer to the next stage of automation

(automation of new functions and processes);

implementation of the following module led to

practicability and readiness for the development of

the next one.

Overall flowchart of the process covered

information system shown in Figure 1. At the last

stage production scheduling during calculating and

optimizing the schedule using the criterion of

minimum time of batch traceability in the shop, or the

criterion of maximum productivity of a group of

working centers of different types, feedback on the

production status was obtained from the equipment

with programmable control. And in case of an

uncontrolled shutdown of equipment or work without

load, the system required to manually input the reason

for the shutdown within 5 minutes after stopping.

The list of reasons was determined based on the

principle of clear responsibility of the of appropriate

services for fixing it: e.g. problems with materials

should stimulate the response of the planning

structure and affect its key performance indicator;

problems with the equipment must be tied to the

repair service, etc. Previously, there was no duty of

the workers to put marks in the information system,

this function is performed by the foreman. The system

was set up, and the operation rules were explained.

• Productionplan

• Responsibleforcontrolandforming:planningdepartmentofthe

enterprise

• Workshopplan

• Responsibleforcontrolandforming:planningdepartmentofthe

enterprise

• Workorderforshift

• Responsibleforstartupandformingofaccompanyinglog:

planningsubdivisionoftheproductionunit

• Accompanyingdocument

• Responsiblefordispatchingofexecution:shopforeman

• Planofworkshopsectionusage(workingdaysschedule)

• Responsibleforoptimizationofequipmentusage:shopforeman

ICEIS 2017 - 19th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

484

The dominating response of 90% of workers was the

opposition to the system, because they did not

understand the need for further action. The

implementation team together with the management

of the department demonstrated the statistics of the

shop performance, gave the instructions to increase

the shop productivity by 20% without using the

system, and explained the allocation of responsibility

for the overall result between all the repair and

support services.

This work was consistent with the first stage of

model by John Kotter: creating a sense of absolutely

urgency of change. At the second stage, the foreman

of the shop was replaced by a person who shared the

benefits of implementing the system, then the

communications of the result of the system

introduction were continued: the operating principles

were conveyed, as well as the staff evaluation based

on the results of the system, and the transparency of

actions to counter the system was explained. During

the first week of the system operation there were

frequent equipment malfunctions for unknown

reasons, and when IT service staff came, the

malfunctions disappeared. Nevertheless, the

production scheduling information was monitored by

the production managers and individual interviews

with the specific staff members were conducted

devoted to capabilities of the system and transparency

of action.

Quick results in information transparency and the

possibility of identifying the time and place of each

batch of products at the working centers demonstrated

the capabilities of the system. Note that the actions of

the staff were performed within the business process

supported by the information system, and other

results of their work were not accounted in the

performance of the shop, and therefore not paid. The

number of reasons for shutdown minimized to the

number of services, which should respond. If the

reasons for shutdown were not indicated for more

than 5 minutes, the workers were fined.

Strengthening of the achievements was

demonstrated by the results of improved shop

performance and the application of the information

system as a production culture element. In general,

despite the fact that the change model by Kotter

relates to organization in general, it can be applied

to modify individual production shops using the

information technology.

4 BASIC SCIENTIFIC AND

TECHNICAL RESULTS

The following of the scientific statements can be

emphasized:

1. Model of radical changes by Kotter can be

applied not only to enterprise-scale

organizational changes in general, but also to

changes at local production shops.

2. The introduction of information technology for

production scheduling and monitoring of the

production process causes the organizational

resistance of the staff. This resistance

complicates the processes in the organization,

bringing additional uncertainty into the

dynamically changing environment of business

processes.

3. At individual shops, the strategy development

stage should be performed prior to a clear

understanding of the results of implementation

by the involved parties.

5 BASIC PRACTICAL RESULTS

The main practical result is the application of the

method of radical changes to improve the

effectiveness of implementing the discrete production

automation systems.

The main resolved issues are:

 Upgrade of the discrete production

management system at the ERP post-implementation

phase,

 Implementation of the production

management system that accounts for the feedback

from the equipment and the production staff,

 More than 50 pieces of equipment and 20

members of the production staff felt the impact of the

organizational changes methodology to improve the

shop performance,

 Application of the Kotter method at the local

production shop reduced the system implementation

time by 20-30% (typical time of 1÷2 months).

6 CONCLUSIONS

The paper describes the application of radical changes

model by Kotter for implementing discrete

production information management system at the

shop level. The reduction of the system

implementation terms is demonstrated by using

organizational change management technique.

Model of Radical Changes and Introduction of Discrete Production Management System

485

REFERENCES

Abakumov, E., Agulova, D., Reshetnikov, I., Kozhevnikov,

N., 2012. Specific features of experimental pilot-scale

production provision with bought-in components.

Part 2. Optimization of volume of orders based on

correlation model. RISK.

Abakumov E., Ulyanin O., Kozhevnikov N., Agulova D.,

Reshetnikov, I., 2014. Information system of

engineering data management as a tool for decision-

making in organizational model of an enterprise. RISK.

Abakumov, E., Agulova, D., 2014. Quality assessment

technique for enterprise information-management

system software, 15th International Conference on

Enterprise Information Systems. SCITEPRESS.

Abakumov, E., Agulova, D., 2015. Risk management in

project of information system integration during merger

of companies. 16th International Conference on

Enterprise Information Systems. SCITEPRESS.

Abakumov,E., Kazanbekov, S., 2015. Approaches to

enhancing efficiency of production management on

shop floor level. 16th International Conference on

Enterprise Information Systems. SCITEPRESS.

Abakumov, E., Agulova, D., 2015. Procedure of automated

systems development at instrument–making

enterprises, 4th International Scientific Conference on

information technologies and systems. UFA.

Hasheela V., 2015. On-premise ERP Organizational Post-

implementation Practices. 17th International

Conference on Enterprise Information Systems.

SCITEPRESS.

Kotter, John P., 1996. Leading Change. Harvard Business

School Press. Harvard.

Kotter, John P., 2014. Accelerate: Building Strategic

Agility for a Faster-Moving World, Harvard Business

Review Press. Harvard.

Mocker M., 2014. Complexity in the Digital Age – How

can IT Help, not Hurt, 16th International Conference

on Enterprise Information Systems, SCITEPRESS.

Thimm H., Thimm K., Rasmussen K., 2008. Partner

selection for virtual organization supporting the

Moderator in Business Networks, 10th International

Conference on Enterprise Information Systems.

SCITEPRESS.

Ulyanin, O., Kozhevnikov, N., Abakumov, E., 2012.

Arrangement of corporate integrated information

environment for design, process engineering and

production work, International Conference

MLSD’2012. IPU.

ICEIS 2017 - 19th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

486