A MANAGEMENT STRATEGY FOR INNOVATION AND ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN - THE CASE OF MRP2 JIT PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT-SYSTEMS

Industrial innovation often involves human rather than technical probl ems. Such problems can be particularly acute when embedded within orga nizational structures and when allied to mechanisms, such as control s ystems, which reinforce the status quo. Management accountancy systems often play this role, being crucially involved in the process of eval uating innovative investments against performance criteria, and indeed are an element within a range of options available in the organizatio nal design process. Yet often in practice such systems and their desig ners are too far removed from where the innovation occurs: being seen incorrectly as an adjunct of senior management, and as an appraisal an d control mechanism, rather than an enabler of change and improvement. This is a symptom of a wider problem of separation between the sites of innovation and production. These issues are explored and some strat egic design criteria developed in the context of MRP2/JIT production m anagement systems.