Track: Operations Management

Abstract

Engineering-related maintenance services of organizations are often non-deterministic, and supervisory delegation of work is often inevitable. Employees are expected to be equipped with the necessary capacity for delegated responsibilities. However, there is a need for an investigation of the quality of delivery of delegated responsibilities and the disposition of staff to available multiple efficiency-enhancing tools before a conclusive need for more workforce. This study investigates the performance quality of delegated responsibilities and staff disposition to use technological tools for productivity enhancement. Interview and questionnaire approaches were adopted. 100% sample size was considered for all the Engineering Maintenance Service department employees of one of the leading minerals processing and metallurgical engineering products companies in South Africa. This study investigated the degree to which work is delegated, the quality of performance of delegated work, a correlation between work delegation and quality of service delivery, the need for more personnel, work execution and staff resistance to information technology, and provided machine tools. The need for more effective tools and the preference for manual methods over more efficient methods were also investigated to accommodate staff feedback on work carried out. From the results obtained, 97% and 93.1% of respondents showed that work is delegated and performed satisfactorily, respectively. However, statistical measures show that some staff do not carry out work to the expected satisfaction (p=0.001<<0.05). While 82.8% of the employees attested to the need for an increased workforce in the department, staff’s use of information technology for work is less than 80%. Though 96.5% of respondents showed that machine tools provided are always used, 65.5% of staff still preferred the use of manual tools, thus impeding work efficiency. A strong correlation existed between tool efficiency and the use of manual efforts (p=0.007 << 0.05) as well. Hence, periodic staff training is necessary for improved efficiency in delegated duties. Though a larger percentage of the workforce advocates for more staff, improving the current workforce’s effectiveness would increase the organization’s overall productivity without recruiting more staff.