Managing Complexity and Speed of Processes in the Organizations—A Philosophical and Practical Approach

The business challenges of today are managing complexity and the speed of changes with processes and systems since there are continuously new requirements from market, consumers, suppliers, employees, government etc. For example, when product and service innovations are launched on the market, the relevant processes, policies, people, systems, and technologies should have been prepared and set up in advance. Depending on the business sector, the implementation of new processes and systems as well as their continuous improvement can be easy to very complex and of course very costly. Responding to those challenges, there are several methodologies and approaches like Continuous Improvement Process, Lean Management and Kaizen etc. On the other hand, the application of these methodologies to other industries like service and technology companies is not always successful since their conditions and requirements are different than those of manufacturing organizations. Because of these reasons, the management needs to find out （new） ways of working and to implement new solutions in order to master those challenges and problems. This is not always easy and successful. There are different types of solution options that can be applied situational in every organization. Philosophy can help essentially by asking and answering critical questions in order to provide with solution options to reduce the complexity and to increase the speed of processes. There are several proven and new governance concepts, frameworks, and tools which follow their philosophies. This paper demonstrates how those challenges can be responded and managed as well as how a philosophical approach can help primarily to provide with appropriate solutions.

Operations Improvement Function and Organisational Adaptability of Petroleum Tank Farms in South-South, Nigeria

The study examined the nexus between operations improvement function (dimensioned by contingency planning, benchmarking and continuous improvement processes) and organisational adaptability of Petroleum tank farms in South-South, Nigeria. The contingency theory and the theory of routine dynamics underpinned the study, and positivism was the underlying philosophy. The study adopted the cross-sectional survey through the use of questionnaire. 820 middle and top-level managers constituted the elements of the population, and the Krejcie & Morgan’s formula was used to determine the sample size of 262 respondents. Structural Equation Modeling was deployed to test the hypotheses at a 0.05 significance level. The results showed that contingency planning;benchmarking and continuous improvement processes all have a significant positive relationship with organisational adaptability of Petroleum tank farms in South-South, Nigeria. The study concludes that Petroleum tank farms’ operations should focus on the adoption of contingency planning, benchmarking and continuous improvement processes to enhance organisational adaptability. Therefore, it is recommended that the management of Petroleum tank farms should put in place mechanisms to advance continuous improvement processes by allocating the necessary amount of resources, such as energy, time and money, in order to promote the continuous development of the continuous improvement systems. Furthermore, managers of Petroleum tank farms should make better the adoption of contingency planning, ensuring that there is as much necessary training and information for employees on how to act during a crises situation, in order to evaluate safety and prepare in advance for recovery from disasters.

Use of Quality Control Circles-A Fad or Need

Different techniques including Quality Control Circles, Business Process Reengineering and Statistical Process Control （SPC）, Total Quality Management have been in use to reduce waste in the industry. Waste is considered as necessary evil and there are many types of waste in the industry. There are many ways and means to reduce waste but the less costly is to use Quality Control Circles technique effectively and efficiently. In quality control circles human resources that consist of small groups of employees are selected, who voluntarily meet at regular intervals to identify, analyze and solve quality and other problems in their work areas. In the Quality Control Circles different techniques of the quality improvement and total quality management are utilized which could be numeric or nonnumeric such as statistical quality control techniques and fish bone diagram or brain storming respectively. This article discusses that how reduction of waste in Pakistan industry is possible by using Quality Control Circles implementation.