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Technology Audit
The MD and other directors of Burke Engineering have now identified the company's core
competence and its non core components. As the MD you propose to now concentrate on
the design and manufacture of valve systems, and feel that tool cutting, physical
distribution, security, catering, cleaning, data processing, and legal services should be
subcontracted initially. There may be other areas of activity that could also be
subcontracted and you will need to continually review the issue. You are now continuing
your policy of allocating resources in a concentrated and systematic fashion to those areas
which will yield the best returns for the company you are determined to apply a new
technique that you learnt in the United States, that of the technology audit.
The technology audit concentrates on work analysis in each department to define areas
where new technology could substantially improve performance either in terms of
productivity, (volume of output per employee) speed of response, motivation of employees
(by the removal of repetitive and non specialised tasks), quality of output or safety of
operation. Following a review of the subcontracting operations, it will enable you as MD to
translate the operations that remain within the company into specific work units, and from
that identify the types of individuals that will be appropriate for the new company direction
and the level of skills that they will require. In common with subcontracting, it is an
operational area that will need to be continually reviewed in relation to the needs of the
business plan.
You have employed Carron Associates a firm specialising in this type of work to complete
a report on the current Burke Engineering operation. Their approach has been to analyse
each of the areas of the company by a combination of work study assessment (evaluating
the time each particular task takes), diaries produced by employees in which they list all
the various actions carried out during the day, and the modelling of the effects of new
technology upon the performance of each of these main activities.
Carron Associates has divided its report into the main areas of the company and
suggested technology that could be used to substantially improve the effectiveness of
each section. You as J Franklin have to decide on the level of investment in each area,
both (in relation to the overall cost benefits, but also on the effects that the changes are
likely to have on the employees that will have to implement and use the new systems.
Design
At present, as the background to the business clearly shows, all the design work is
currently carried out manually. With the change towards a concentration on valve design
and manufacture it is likely that not only will the volume of work in the design department
increase but so will its complexity. Forecasts of work demand suggest that under the new
plan total hours in developing designs will increase fourfold, the amount of time checking
such designs will double as will the time involved in various reports both to clients and
within the company. The details of the timing implications are listed in Table 14 in
Appendix A.
Carron Associates have suggested that the introduction of computer aided design in this
area of the organisation would have significant effects on reducing the amount of time
involved in the design process, while at the same time substantially improving the quality
of the finished designs. Computer aided design allowed the operator to explore how each
component fitted together on the screen, to rotate the valve in any direction, and to
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