Variety Management for the Industrial Administration
Doktorsavhandling, 2009
Administrative work in today’s industry is steadily
increasing, driven by factors such as globalisation,
automation, government requirements, shorter life cycles of
products, a greater number of derivates etc. Hence, great
effort has been spent on a more rational handling of
information by the administrative functions of the firm.
Notwithstanding remarkable progress, much work remains
to be done to improve the performance of the industrial
operations in terms of quality, delays, costs and flexibility.
The research is conducted under the assumption that a
rational management of the industrial firm’s administrative
functions will substantially increase the value provided by
its operations. Rationality was approached by using value
instead of productivity for quantification and by treating
administration as an element of the production system
examined with industrial engineering (IE) and
organisational cybernetics methods. The goal of the
research is to find a method for assessment and
improvement of value in industrial administration.
The methodology consisted of literature studies and
experiments in an operative industrial environment. On the
basis of these, a program for improvement of value in
administration was developed. This program was evaluated
in parts in several experiments and as a whole in a
validation experiment. It was concluded that the
improvements regarding the value of the industrial
administrative function derived from its use are substantial.
industrial administration
organisational cybernetics
value
industrial engineering
IE