Managing Computers in Large Organizations

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Managing Microcomputers in Large Organizations http://www.nap.edu/catalog/167.html About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. PRODUCTIVITY THROUGH AUTOMATION 107 We are now seeking a universal form processor that will allow a user to call up on a terminal any form used in the company, fill in the blanks, and send it by electronic mail to the individual or computer that has to review it, approve it, or process it. If this capability is acquired, we believe it would be used by almost everyone. Technical computation is used by our technicians, engineers, and scientists. Timesharing has been the delivery vehicle, and the applications are mainly specialized routines the company has purchased or the users have written for themselves. Business analysis was the final delivery vehicle we identified. In many companies business analysts, planners, accountants, and others have long used automation as a vehicle for improving their productivity. At the beginning of 1980, however, Reynolds had no terminals to support such individuals. This situation has changed with the availability of color graphics and analytic tool packages. A spreadsheet computer program such as Visicalc, which runs on a personal computer, is very popular; we wish it were available now on larger IBM machines. When it is we believe the number of terminals used by business analysts will grow even more rapidly. How is the investment in various automation delivery vehicles justified? I have already explained that in order to determine the market for each of the six delivery vehicles we mapped the number of people in each functional job code against their potential to use a primary delivery vehicle. The resulting match-up was also used for justification purposes. Obviously, we expect most users to employ more than one delivery vehicle. For example, secretaries who primarily use word processing also process transactions and inquire into databases. But the justification for this investment requires an improvement in productivity that is usually assumed to be measurable only by the primary focus. Once a terminal is installed for primary access, of course, other delivery vehicles can be made available. When we matched job functions with delivery vehicles we found that terminals for about 57 percent of the salaried employees would be justified by transaction processing. The second largest justified use (15 percent) was for technical computation. This is because Reynolds is a manufacturing and technology company and has a significant cadre of engineers and scientists. Three percent of the staff was identified as managers, and should have devices Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Managing Microcomputers in Large Organizations http://www.nap.edu/catalog/167.html About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. PRODUCTIVITY THROUGH AUTOMATION 108 justified for electronic mail. The balance was about evenly split between word processing (10 percent), database (9 percent), and business analysis (6 percent). Quite a different picture emerged when we looked at the actual use of delivery vehicles compared to the justified (or projected) use. (See Figure 2.) The productivity improvement in one primary area had provided the justification, but microcomputers are in fact blurring the lines between vehicles, causing changes in job function and rebalancing the workload. What seems to be happening is that automation is changing the jobs of salaried employees. The individual delivery vehicles have had widely varying growth rates between 1980 and 1983. Transaction processing, which began with the largest base, has been growing steadily at about 15 percent per year. Technical computation doubled in 1980 and grew another 60 percent during 1981. Word processing more than doubled in each of its first three years and is approaching 50 percent penetration of the market. In all, these three vehicles should satisfy over 80 percent of Reynold's automation needs when fully implemented. Data inquiry, business analysis, and electronic mail began the decade at ground zero. In the last two years, both data inquiry and business analysis have broken out of the pilot/test modes and have achieved market acceptance. Electronic mail has not been as successful, and research is now under way to find out why. With its market reasonably defined and delivery vehicles in place, Reynolds addressed the issue of the rates of growth we could manage while meeting our end-of-the-decade objective. As a percentage of our salaried work force, individuals using automation grew from a base of 6 percent at the start of 1979 to 21 percent in January 1983. A compound growth rate of 30 percent per year from 1983 on would achieve the 1990 objective of 100 percent automation. Actual growth has been over 33 percent per year, compounded. As productivity improvements are achieved the salaried work force needed to handle a given volume of business is being reduced. This makes 100 percent automation delivery by 1990 even more likely. Along with the marketing and growth aspects of its long-term plan, Reynolds has identified a number of organizational issues that demand attention. These can be broadly divided into technology, management, and cultural issues. Computers are available in a dazzling variety of sizes, capabilities, Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
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Managing Computers in Large Organizations

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