Optimizing RFID Readiness: When 'Business as Usual' Intersects with Disruptive Technology
By Dr. Paul Squires and Douglas P. Neary
From the farm to the mill and ultimately to the store shelf, work processes and logistics can be documented and accounted for at each step in the chain. Successful businesses and the economies of developed nations rely on regular, dependable processes that are linked and well understood.
When a new technology is introduced into the workplace, the method and means of implementing work processes oftentimes must change in order to take advantage of the potential efficiencies of the new technology. For a disruptive technology like RFID, its impact on processes promises to be widespread and demanding, challenging business to higher levels of agility and responsiveness to customers.
This article describes the RFIDba Work Standards Model(tm), a tool for operational preparedness and business process improvement, which helps organizations quantify and assess the workplace skills and knowledge they need for success with RFID. The Work Standards Model (WSM) is being developed under a global research project sponsored by the International RFID Business Association (RFIDba). The Association is developing internationally accepted standards for RFID education, training, and certification based on the RFIDba WSM.
New Technologies Impact Business
New technologies reduce the labor needed to create products and services, raise industrial productivity, and improve nations' standards of living. The continual introduction of new technologies is a critical driver of successful industries and successful economies. Understanding the impact of new technologies on work tasks, work processes, and worker knowledge, skills, and abilities is critical to achieving the full benefits and increases in productivity that new technologies can bring.
New technologies affect work in different ways. Regardless of the type of impact, technological advances affect the tasks a worker performs and the knowledge, skills, and abilities the worker must possess to perform the new or altered tasks successfully. Successfully implementing change in work processes that are wrought by new technologies is critical to achieve the gains in productivity and the other benefits made possible by new technologies. But it is difficult to do. It turns out that it's often less about the technology than about organizational readiness for business process change.
Poorly designed work processes waste resources, are less safe, reduce productivity, increase errors, and create legal risk (especially in highly regulated industries such as the food and pharmaceutical industries). Managers frequently misdiagnose bad work processes and send workers to more training or believe they must hire better workers. Managers and organizations frequently lack the time and resources to evaluate their work processes critically.
Integrating a New Technology
The truth is that understanding work processes and tasks as well as the knowledge, skills, and abilities workers need to perform tasks is complicated not only because it requires a high degree of detailed knowledge about the job being described, but because it also requires defining the tasks, knowledge, skills, and abilities. There are no generally agreed upon definitions of a task, knowledge, skill, or ability. These terms are often used interchangeably. Additional terms such as competence, behavior, work activity, capabilities, etc. further complicate the picture. To make matters worse, persons defining work processes often describe work at very different levels of granularity.
There are four characteristics of work processes that are important to understand when analyzing work. First off, work evolves to a simpler form over time. This evolution is driven by changes in technology and the desire of managers and workers to simplify work. Work begins as a complex or effortful set of tasks. As experience is gained with the tasks, they are broken into related components and "routine-ized." Some of these routine tasks are simple and are turned over to less skilled, less expensive workers. Eventually routine tasks are simplified and "routine-ized" to the point that they are performed by machines and computers. The automotive industry is a good example of this evolution and simplification of tasks.
Secondly, the tasks that comprise a work process change slowly over time and these tasks tend to be the same from organization to organization. Differences in work processes arise not in the tasks, but from how the tasks are accomplished. That is, while the tasks tend to be the same, the machines, tools, and equipment workers use to accomplish tasks and the knowledge required to use the machines, tools, and equipment is the primary source of differences in work processes.
The third characteristic is the fact that work processes evolve and are performed differently over time, and if they are to be analyzed and tracked, the work processes have to be defined in a manner that facilitates revision and updating. Tracking and knowing how work evolves over time enables organizations to identify best practices, change quickly, and maintain high levels of productivity.
Fourthly and finally, managers in organizations group work processes and their tasks in various ways to create job titles. Organizations group tasks and work processes differently depending upon their size, worker expertise, and the organization's culture. Large organizations group tasks into smaller combinations and have more specialist job titles. Smaller organizations require workers to perform a wider array of tasks and therefore have larger numbers of tasks per job title. Some organizations cross-train workers extensively, others do not. The job titles associated with the former include more tasks than the latter. Because of the somewhat arbitrary association of job titles and groupings of tasks, job titles are not a good basis for performing studies of work processes.
Because the work processes can be defined, updated, and tracked over time, it is possible to create a standard set of work processes and best practices in an industry such as RFID. These processes and practices can validly apply to a wide range of work in any organization in that industry. These work standards can then be used to track and guide the evolution and design of work processes in an organization, and can be customized. If an organization can change its work processes rapidly when technological advances provide the opportunity to do so, they will increase productivity and compete more successfully.
What is a Work Standards Model?
A Work Standards Model (WSM) is a description of work and workers. A WSM describes work: work processes, tasks and task elements that are performed in an organization and the interrelationships among them. The WSM also describes the worker: the knowledge, skills, and abilities that he or she must possess to perform the work successfully.
Once the work is described correctly, then the worker knowledge, skills, abilities and the machines, tools, and equipment that workers need to perform the work successfully are defined. Thereafter, an iterative process of modeling, testing, and validating assumptions and findings is employed to quantify and codify the work, the worker information, and the various interrelations among them.
The methods used by the RFIDba to define, develop, and continuously maintain the WSM were originally derived and sanctioned by the National Skills Standards Board. As such, this approach offers businesses and governments a formally validated approach to ensuring the readiness of their workforce to implement and execute RFID-enabled business processes. While many organizations have competency models and job descriptions, the approach described here is more rigorous and scientific. This is especially important in regulated or hazardous environments, or when information security and privacy could be impacted by RFID and related technologies.
Benefiting from the RFIDba WSM
The development of a WSM for the supply chains in key industries can facilitate the adoption of RFID by defining the work processes and worker knowledge, skills, and abilities associated with an RFID-enabled supply chain. This will enable an organization to more successfully attain the full business value that RFID promises to offer.
Organizations can use a WSM to guide the rapid change of their work processes as they seek to exploit the full benefits of an RFID-enabled supply chain. The RFIDba WSM can also be used to:
Create a curriculum map that ensures the quality of RFID education and training programs. Develop fair and accurate assessments and certifications that identify the extent and level of a person's RFID expertise. Develop a statistical quality control system for work processes.
New technologies such as RFID have significant impacts on work processes. Most organizations focus their resources on implementing a new technology and focus significantly less resources on planning and changing work processes. RFID will have a disruptive impact on supply chain work processes. The availability of an industry specific, continually updated WSM for an RFID-enabled supply chain can significantly reduce the time and cost required for an organization to change their work processes and fully exploit RFID technology. A WSM can speed up the introduction of RFID in an industry and substantially reduce the time required for an organization to gain the full benefits made available by RFID technology. l
Dr. Paul Squires is President of Applied Skills & Knowledge (AS&K), an education and work standards firm based in Morristown, NJ, with extensive experience in the development and validation of work standards for the manufacturing, retail, biotechnology, information technology, and communication systems industries. AS&K served as a lead researcher and outsourcing partner for the National Skill Standards Board (NSSB).
Douglas Neary is Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer of the International RFID Business Association. Founded in 2004, the Association represents a diverse, global community of end-users and systems integrators dedicated to assuring business success with RFID through the establishment of international standards for RFID education, training, and professional certification. With the IBM Corporation and Cap Gemini Sogeti, Neary served clients in the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, transportation, telecommunications, and energy sectors.
|
