grouping and empowerment of employe

grouping and empowerment of employees
another major structural difference between JIT and traditional organizations relates to the grouping and responsibilities of employees. As just indicated, each cell is viewed as a minifactory. Thus each cell requires easy and quick access to support services, which means that centralized service departments must be scaled down and their personnel reassigned to work directly with manufacturing and quality engineers, are often assigned to cells
Training cell workers to perform multiple tasks also has the effect of relocating support services to the cell. In addition to direct production work, cell workers may perform setup duties, move partially completed goods from station to station within the cell, perform preventive maintenance and minor repairs, conduct quality inspections, and perform janitorial tasks. This multiple-task capability is directly related to the pull-through production approach. Producing on demand means that production workers (formerly direct laborers) may often have "free" time. This nonproduction time can be used to perform selected support activities.
Cell workers are also given a greater degree of participation in the management of the organization. Worker input is sought and used to improve production processes. Workers at Saturn and Southwest Airlines and other JIT organizations are often involved in interviewing and hiring other employees, sometimes even including prospective bosses. The reason? If the "chemistry is right," then the workforce will be more efficient and will work together better. Managers act more as facilitators than as supervisors.