I was in a manufacturing plant shortly after they implemented enterprise software. This software was very good at tracking material movement. I couldn’t help but notice a particular gentleman in a meeting. He was angry, yelling, cursing, his face was red. He wasn’t throwing things, but he wanted to. I asked about it. This is his story.
He is/was the plant expeditor. His job was to track material as it moved through the production line. He also tracked which production orders were going to ship this month and which were not. If they were in danger of not making the manufacturing goal due to material shortage, he would spring into action. The expeditor would go to a unit that was being manufactured and was not shipping this month, strip it of the necessary parts, give the parts to a unit that was short but was scheduled to ship this month. Many a month, manufacturing would hot its goals. No information on this activity was formally kept. He maintained his own records of what was missing from which units. When the parts came in he would get it replaced on the cannibalized unit. He was a hero! He was credited with being the major factor that allowed manufacturing to reach its goals month after month.
As people began using the ERP software, it became clear that anyone with access could find the parts that were needed on a production unit that wasn’t scheduled to ship. This removed the unique basis from which this person derived his status. Once he recognized this loss of importance, he became quite agitated and angry and developed resistance almost to the point of violence.
This situation could have been prevented. It could have been dealt with upfront. The project team could have done a better job of determining the formal AND informal processes that took place in the plant. They based their design on the formal process as described by the people in the formal process. They did not take the time to look outside the formal process and determine the impacts of the implementation on the informal process and the people who run them. Had they done that, they could have predicted the impact to this particular person. They squashed this person’s status without even knowing that they were doing it.
I urge everyone who is undergoing a change management project to evaluate how people interact to make the process work. In particular you should look at what makes the process continue to operate when the process is not working. This is where you find a mass of information about the informal process and who is involved. Then consider how to deal with the impact of the change to the individuals.
I’d love to hear other examples and how they could have been prevented. Comment Below.
Posted by bobmaitland 
