Old Management Notions Called Outdated
NEW YORK, April 5ÛÓSeventy-five years of management ideas must be discarded if industry is to get high productivity out of factories run by computers, scientists said today at a computer conference here.</br></br>Seymour Melman, a Columbia University engineering professor, said that the effects of trying to computerize the work place without changing outmoded notions of how to manage a factory can be disastrous.</br></br>One of AmericaÛªs largest car companies, he said, has two plants that make engines and transmissions for testing. They are nearly identical.</br></br>In one factory, the workers have been trained in computer programming and have the authority to control the computerized machine tools.</br></br>But in the other plant the computerized machine tools are locked up so that only managers can change the programming. Workers have only an on/off switch to operate. All planning, scheduling and maintenance are in the hands of management. That plant is operating at less than 50 percent capacity and has higher turnover than its sister plant, Melman said.