GOALI: Principles of White Collar Workforce Management

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

This Grant Opportunity for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI) grant provides funding for modeling and empirical analysis of white collar work functions, such as sales, engineering and management. The modeling research will focus on developing analogs to the successful queueing-based representations of workflows in (blue collar) manufacturing systems that have been used to understand and refine practices such as lean manufacturing and agile manufacturing. However, because white collar systems exhibit important differences from blue collar systems (e.g., outputs are complex and sometimes subjective, knowledge transfer plays a pivotal role), very different types of models are required. This research will focus on (1) modeling networks of flows in which the task completion times are subjective, and hence represent a quality vs. time tradeoff, (2) developing a class of models that couple information with work flow, and (3) extending the basic principles underlying workforce management by characterizing capacity, benefits of cross-training and the role of information sharing in the context of white collar work. Finally, to ensure that analytical results are well-connected to practice, the research team will collect empirical data about practices in specific white collar work systems within General Motors to validate modeling assumptions and investigate managerial implications. Because the American economy is shifting away from manufacturing labor toward service and professional work this research, if successful, could have enormous practical benefits. By providing a rigorous basis for answering questions such as "what is the system bottleneck?" and "what constitutes a healthy informal communication network in an organization?" for white collar work environments, this work will help managers make more informed decisions concerning their workforce and achieve higher levels of productivity. Since productivity in the service sector has increased more slowly than in the manufacturing sector, implementation of this emerging "Science of White Collar Work" could have a significant impact on long-term economic growth.