ARC calls for real-time knowledge workers
Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 8/1/2004 12:00:00 AM
Andy Chatha, president of Dedham, Mass.-based ARC Advisory Group, sees manufacturing over the next decade facing these challenges:
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More demanding customers;
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A need to bridge, via collaboration, the gap among production, partner, and business systems;
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Asia as the low-cost manufacturing and IT center; and
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New security threats.
Chatha also sees one solution. A company populated with "knowledge workers" armed with real-time performance metrics will make American manufacturing competitive on a global scale. Whether on the shop floor or driving a truck, employees equipped with roles-based, personalized dashboards become knowledge workers who can make decisions that allow companies to literally "change what they are making on a daily basis. We think people can do a lot more with the right tools and freedom," says Chatha.
But leading a company into an era of real-time information management such as Chatha advocates means jettisoning long-cherished habits like annual budgets and fixed production targets monitored monthly.
