Computer Aided Organizational Engineering: State of the Art in Germany and Assessment of the Existing Computer-Based Organization Design

Computational Organization Design

Volume

Papers from the 1994 AAAI Spring Symposium

Contents

Similar to software engineering, the concept of "organizational engineering" is based on the idea to open the organization design tasks for the engineering know-how within the field of industrial engineering; the roots for this idea can be found within the classical task/structure/processoriented approaches of organization design theory in Germany, and they have also a long tradition within the "German Community of Organization Designers" respectively organization design experts. The keyelement of organizational engineering is the use of computerbased organization design tools to support the tasks of designing organizational structures (for example, in terms of task decomposition/specialization, decision autonomy/responsibility; static view) and processes (for example, in terms workflow, information flow; dynamic view). The use of these tools aims to rationalize the organization design tasks, with regards to time, costs and quality of the (results of the) design process. The need to rationalize emerges from a certain "organization design crisis". This "crisis" results from the growing complexity of the organization design tasks in connection with the increasing significance of the utilization of the so-called "new" computer-based information and communication technologies. In comparison with the "old" technologies, it is not only a question of efficient technical design, but rather a problem of resolving the complexity of reciprocal influences on technology, strategy, organizational structures and processes, and staff aspects.