Autono-who?
The word autonomation was coined by Dr. Shigeo Shingo, an industrial engineer born in Japan in 1909. His career was heavily influenced by Taylor-style management disciplines until he went to work as a management consultant with the Japan Management Association, where he was influenced by W. Edwards Demings teachings on statistical product quality management. He went on to invent a number of seminal techniques for production and productivity improvement, among which was Toyota’s vaunted Toyota Production System.
Dr. Shingo understood the production process as an activity with various degrees of labor density. Labor density is the simple relationship of Work/Motion. The idea is that a lot of motion has nothing to do with value-added work; conversely, a well designed workplace may see a worker barely move while generating a lot of value.
Dr. Shingo observed that increasing labor density tended to introduce automation, which was fine as long as everything went ok. However, mechanical automation could not deal very well with exception conditions: things went wrong, and people had to jump in to fix problems. This led him to design processes that made use of automation, but expected humans to actively use machines as tools. Workers had to become aware of large parts of the production process, and understand some of the basic management principles involved in production. The workers were becoming the managers of machines, thereby dramatically improving labor density, while retaining flexibility, and effectively managing ever-present exception conditions.
Dr. Shingo termed this principle Autonomation—people working autonomously with automated work steps.
The Lean Office
Autonomation is part of the ‘lean management’ or ‘lean office’ approach, among other things, such as cycle time management, value mapping, etc.
Communication Management involves the processing of inbound communication, determining its disposition, and generating outbound communication, either as an original or in response. Communication Management principles are involved in insurance processes, regulatory management, marketing of all kinds, customer service processes, and so on.
The 80-20 rule applies: most communication is standard, or rote, and can be readily automated. However, it’s the 20% of non-standard communication, particularly inbound, that requires the full attention of a process specialist.
The application of autonomation principles in communication management requires that rote, repeatable processes be automated, freeing specialists to concentrate on exceptions, or, put another way, customer satisfaction. Because this is the virtuous cycle of autonomation in communication management: workers can concentrate on customer’s needs.
Workflow Automation of Standard Transactions
The use of programmed workflows using Group 1’s OpenEDMS automates most repeatable tasks. Process specialists can generate communication from 1 to ten million with the click of a button, and auto-indexing and routing support, along with entity identification and automated submission to operating systems take the labor out of inbound management. Finally, powerful communication management utilities plug into business operating systems, eliminating the need to deal with the nitty-gritty of generating or processing multi-channel communication itself.
This frees workers to handle difficult situations sooner and more effectively. Consider the example of a manufacturer of medical equipment in a highly regulated environment. Changes to designs require extensive reviews and external, regulatory approval at various stages. Notices and communications from customers are usually routine, but on occasion provide critical information about field performance. A solution here would automate most of the formal engineering change management process, freeing work customer service representatives to discuss product performance with customers directly. Costs are reduced, customer satisfaction goes up, and product liability management reduces risks.
Autonomation is a key industrial engineering principle governing the design of effective Communication Management processes: Understand and Connect.
