Variety Management for the Industrial Administration

Abstract: 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.