Smart Shoveling
At the beginning of the 20th century, Frederick Taylor applied industrial engineering techniques to shoveling coal. Taylor was one of the leaders of a movement that promised to improve productivity through “scientific management”.
Taylor experimented with the shape, size, and weight of shovels to determine the impact on productivity. In addition to coal, Taylor studied the shoveling of ash, ore, and gravel. His experiments showed that no one shovel was best for all materials. Different materials required shovels that differed in size, shape, or weight. By designing task-specific shovels, Taylor tripled the amount of material a worker could shovel in a day. This dramatically improved morale as well since workers were paid by the ton. Increasing productivity meant increasing income.
Is shoveling coal similar to using an ERP system? Some of your users may say so. Many of us have accepted that graphical user interfaces (GUIs) are what they are and we simply have to adjust to them. It’s another one of those all-in-one traps. We’ve too readily accepted that one user interface is the best solution for all applications and all users. Over a century ago, Taylor proved that one size does not fit all.
This is one of the reasons that Lawson recently introduced the Smart Client. Like Taylor, we spent a lot of time studying how users actually use their systems. The result is a GUI that offers more choice. Users can tailor their environment to their needs and can change their environment as their needs change. It might be called a liquid interface. Just as a liquid conforms to the shape of its container, so the Smart Client conforms to the needs of its user. This typically means greater productivity and better user satisfaction.
Can the Smart Client triple productivity? We’re not claiming that – at least, not yet. But we will claim that using the Smart Client will make most other interfaces feel like shoveling coal.
To read more about Lawson’s Smart Client, click here.
As its name implies, The Lawson Opinionizer offers opinions. We believe we've got our facts straight but we don't guarantee it. A new Opinionizer appears every Monday. If you have an opinion, send an e-mail to Opinionizer@lawson.com
|