Ben Compton <BCOMPTON@novell.com> draws a parallel to manufacturing and
concludes with:
>..Technical Support Engineers have clearly defined expectations: Take
>calls from customers, solve them as quickly as you can, and get on to the
>next customer. The problem is that this attitude does not take into
>account the time it takes to discover and replicate new knowledge, nor
>does it take into account the variableness of the work we do. Thus it is
>difficult to accurately predict call capacity, or even an optimum call
>capacity.
>
>Thus, in my opinion, the model is all wrong. We need to think completely
>different about knowledge work, and stop trying to applying the model that
>emerged from the industrial revolution to the knowledge/information
>revolution.
Ben. the model you use for manufacturing is very narrow. The assembly line
no longer adequately describes most manufacturing operations. Eli Goldratt
debunked most of the traditional manufacturing management theories in his
landmark book on the theory of constraints in 1984 called "The Goal" - I
strongly recommend you read that before trying to apply any manufacturing
ideas!
Your specific problem bears more resemblance to respondents in a help desk
and the Help Desk Institute can provide lots of help. Using workgroup
software and expert systems is usually the approach. The random nature of
input is common to many businesses. The Beer Game in The Fifth Discipline
is a good illustration of this random effect when looking at a component
of the problem. You need to define your problem to include your clients
and their objectives, then apply systems thinking to the whole domain. End
of sermon! ....Keith
--Keith Cowan <72212.51@CompuServe.COM>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>