Track: Operations Management and Operations Research

Abstract

Despite an extensive body of knowledge about organisational design for manufacturing, the question remains what organisational structures fit best with which competitive priorities and which capabilities of resources, also caused by a lack of comparative studies.  Four characteristics of organisational design suggest that the structure of manufacturing organisations is a result of inductive and teleological methods, similar to product design and engineering.  None of the four traditional approaches embeds principles of the engineering perspective.  To demonstrate the suitability of the ‘engineering perspective’, action research at a manufacturer of agricultural equipment has been undertaken.  The interplay between the analysis and the organisational redesign yields not only insight about the effectiveness of this fifth approach but also about the limited relevance of the four traditional perspectives.  Perhaps the design of organisational structures for manufacturing organisations is best served with derivations of the principles and methods of engineering.