Class consciousness now seen at the keyboard

Press, 17 December 1985, Page 33

Class consciousness now seen at the keyboard

By

MICHAEL BYWATER.

techno-

logy editor of “Punch,”

New technology, so they do say round these parts (when the moon be full), will usher in the new era of egalitarian democracy, a micro-electronic Erewhon where everyone has access to information and power and the ability to manipulate knowledge and make things happen, though what kind of things is not specified.

Unfortunately, one of the first opportunities to be seized upon was the chance of a new sort of snobbery. Gosh, what fun! Why be content with making your workforce eat in a noisy utility canteen and keeping them out of the executive lavatories, when you can now stop them from having access to computers. “Oh, they’d never stand for it.” “It’s not the sort of thing our chaps would understand.” ’ /I “In principle, it’s fine, but you have to remember the calibre of our workforce.” “Your British worker is a rum kind of chappie. Fundamentally damned conservative. Wouldn’t take to it at all, particularly not some of the older ones.” I expect you have heard such observations. Perhaps you have even delivered them, when the brain has been slipping out of gear. Experience, where these things have been tried, tells a different tale. I was talking to some men from Arthur Andersen, a gigantic outfit of accountants and management consultants and (relevant for this column) information technology experts, and they told me all sorts of interesting tales about this snobbery business.

By way of a preamble, I would remind you of another bit of snobbery — that some aspects of new technology are more acceptable than others; that management decision support teams are smart and goahead, but warehousing and distribution systems are not. What nonsense. There is no point in having a wonderful management information system if the thing you are managing is creaking along on its benders. Central to the profitability of any retail trade are warehousing.

So: let us be brave, look the world straight in the eye and say: “Yes, warehousing and distribution are important and can be sexy, and if you find it impossible to get excited about better ways of handling the subject, it is because you do not have a good enough brain.” But to return to our snobs. First: “Our chaps are very conservative and would not like new technology, particularly the older men.” Conjure up a picture of one of those shuffling old fellows in a brown coat who gets shunted into the warehouse, and spends his life mooning around in a dusty world of chit and docket. Now slap in a sophisticated computer system, overcome the claims of management that our hero is too dim and working-class to understand it all, and give him a terminal. Then go and, with some trepidation, ask him how he feels about it. I“I only wish,” he says, “that we had had these things 30 years ago.” True story. Next true story? Another boring little part of business life which is just not exciting: the accounts department. Enter a construction company which has 30 accounts clerks simply checking invoices. The site managers receive things like concrete, glass, bricks and so on, and receive a delivery note (which has no prices on it because one-cannot-allow-the workforce-to-see-how-much-things-cost, old-boy). The company installs a computer system to check the invoices, and discovers something which it had already suspected in a kind of vague, half-moon-spectacles way: invoices were mysteriously increasing in cost between the delivery of goods and the submission of invoices.

Now the masterstroke, which was only installed after some heart-searching about what the site foremen (terribly nice chaps of course, but not-quite-like-us) can and cannot do. In this case, they can do a great deal. Each foreman is given a computer linked to the main accounts machine. Word goes out that there will be no more invoices.

Even more interestingly words goes out that prices will now be determined at time of delivery. Lorry rolls up with goods on. Foreman checks goods against order held (and price quoted) with accounts department mainframe back at headquarters. Presses button, prints out goods received note (with prices on) and hands it to drive of lorry, saying: “This is what you have delivered and this is what we will be paying for it.” The result is that there is no need to spend hours checking invoices against delivery notes, suppliers cannot “make a mistake” in their invoicing, everything is cut-and-dried and (perhaps most important) the site foreman now has some direct involvement in the financial affairs of the company. That may sound like a large claim, but I think it is reasonable to suppose that an employee who sees what something costs (even if he hasn’t negotiated the price himself) is going to be more aware of the matter than one who knows nothing except that materials mysteriously come in and are consumed.

This exercise in what must be considered fairly revolutionary application of computer technology at the production end of an industry not known for its democracy is triumphantly successful. I am not suggesting that we should forget about management information systems by any means. But it is as well to remember that there are other ways to apply technology. They may not be so immediately appealing as having visitors to your office confronted by flashing screens and whirring disk drives, but they can have at least as great an effect upon the way you do business. Using management information systems can all too easily turn out to be flogging a dead horse; but it might be worth having a look at the horse first; Maybe it is not dead, just sleeping.

distribution and stock control.