The Examples in Developing a Socio-technical Plan

Unit 4 Discussion Board 3

The Examples in Developing a Socio-technical Plan

Primary Response

ThienSi (TS) Le

CS875-1602C-01

Futuring & Innovation

Dr. Imad Al Saeed

 (23-May-2016)

In Unit 4 Discussion Board 3 on the topic of “Good companies go bad”, students are required to research organizations that had a good plan, but they went down because something changed out of organizational control. This short piece of writing will describe the situation of the company with a good plan, discuss its failure in competitive business, and develop a sociotechnical plan for an organization.

One of the most common phenomena in business is the good companies that have good strategic plans but often fail to respond effectively to big changes in technologies, various markets, or human resources. These companies that witness their low revenue, fewer profits, tumbled stock valuation, and best people leaving are unable to defend themselves against competitors who have new products, technologies, or strategies. Some companies ultimately turn around in downsizing and restructuring, but others disappear in business. Managers who confront companies’ disruption in business often assume that the problem relates to paralysis even though they usually recognize the threat, carefully analyze this problem and respond with an initiative plan, etc. Except for all good strategic plans, the companies still stumble (Sull, 1999).   

1. An example of the good company that goes wrong 

Figure 1: The old Firestone store

(Source: Adapted from www.firestone.eu, n.d.)

One of the companies had a good plan but went bad is Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. (www.firestone.com) found by Harvey Firestone in 1900. The Firestone that uses strategy to treat customers and employees as part of the “Firestone family” enjoyed seven decades of uninterrupted growth in the US tire industry. It built a team of loyal managers, exploited booming demand for tires by new production capacity online, and had a close tie relationship with the top executives of the big carmakers all in the good strategic plans.

However, everything changed almost overnight. Michelin, a French company, introduced the radial tires to the US market. Radial tires, based on a breakthrough in technological design, were safer, last longer, and less cost than traditional bias tires. When a Ford company used radial tires in all new cars in 1972, Michelin would dominate both US and European markets.

Firestone watched the European markets embraced radial tires during the 1960s through its large operations in Europe and had developed forecasts that were clearly indicative that Michelin’s radials would dominate in the U.S tire industry. Firestone swiftly took action: invested $400 million in radial production, built a new plant for radial tires, converted several existing factories, etc. Albeit, Firestone’s actions were quick and responsive; it was far from effective. It still used the existing production process for higher quality radial tires. It delayed closing many factories that produced bias tires. In 1979, Firestone was in deep trouble. Its factories ran at 59% of capacity. Its costly renting warehouse stored unsold bias tires. Product recalls arose. Its domestic tire business had a loss of more than $200 million in cash due to US tire sales were flat because radials lasted twice as long as bias tires Firestones’ CEO used the assumptions of ever-growing demand with no need to close plants. All of Firestone’s intense analysis and action plans were ineffective. The company surrendered most of its share of the US market to foreign corporations and suffered through two hostile takeover bids before finally being acquired by a Japanese company, Bridgestone, in 1988.   

2. An example of the potential impact on the socio-technical plan

Figure 2: A robot is ready in action.

(Source: Adapted from www.bttpl.com, 2016)

This is the world that is constantly going through change, especially technological change. There are many predictions regarding where we will be as a society as a result of leveraging big data. Their applications and outcomes can go either way. Success or failure depends on decision makers’ judgment, skill, and vision.

            Inspiring from the imaginary robot characters such as C-3P0, R2-D2 or Terminator from the films industry (Lucas, n.d.; Cameron, n.d.), robotics is chosen for educational technology for a future adoption. Robots were developed along with Artificial Intelligence to deploy in factory assembly line to increase productivity in the automotive industry in early years. Integration of robots has, today, expanded in many fields such as manufacturing, healthcare, mining, defense, security, transportation, home appliances, etc. NMC (2016) predicts that robotics can be used in higher education to assist students to become better problem solvers in the next five years. Humanoid robots can interact and assist learners in disorders or people with disability to develop well-behaved social skills and better communications in a sociotechnical process.    

3. Discussion of robotics’ relevance

            Robotics is a concept of creating autonomous machines to mimic human behavior and often manage dangerous tasks (Dobson, 2015). Robots can replace humans to take labor work for economic and fewer cost reasons. They can also work interactively with humans to perform dangerous tasks such as bomb removal, weapon demolition, etc. Robots have been present in surgery rooms, scientific laboratories, battlefields, search and rescue scenarios, Mars, and homes such as vacuum cleaners, toys, and security guards. Robotics, in the 21^st century, is relevant to governments, corporations, scientists who envision as a major trend in technological, economic, and social development. Robotics revolution is imminent in progess (IEEE RAS, 2016).        

4. Driving forces

            Robotics will make a significant contribution to technology, economy, culture, humanity, defense, and society. The forces that impact the trend and the technology are technological, cultural, human, and societal. Three typical forces are technological, economic, and defensive.

            With the cultural and economic goals to adapt someone’s idea and make it different and better, robotics has evolved in a full scale. The technological force drives robotics rapidly in many fields along with ubiquitous data and computers. Robotics integration has the very positive impact in working environment with cost-effective fashion. Robots that replace human workers in paper processing works, and perform dangerous tasks such as bomb demolition, etc. are driven by the defensive force. However, robotics also causes a negative impact on the human working force. They replace human workers. People lose their jobs and are maybe obsolete. The governments need to step in to find alternative solutions for people who are unemployed or lose their jobs because of robotics. The economic force on robotics is an agile and forward movement in academia. Higher education educators who can provide a leadership model to promote a culture of innovation of robotics would have a significant impact on the education, economy, entrepreneurship, humanity, and society.

In summary, the writing described a company, Firestone; that had a good action plan went out of business because of new technological products beyond their control in a constant and rapid change in technology and competitive market. It discussed robotics and their applications as an example of the potential impact on the socio-technical plan.  The reasons of robotics that become relevant between human and robots were provided. The driving forces such as technological, economic, defensive, and social weights played a huge impact on the innovation idea of robotics in many areas.  

REFERENCES

Cameron, J. (n.d.). Terminator 2. Retrieved on April 18, 2016, from

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088247/

Dobson, A. (2015). Robotic technology promises to improve mining. Retrieved on April

18, 2016 from http://phys.org/news/2015-05-robotic-technology-safety.html

Lucas, G. (n.d.). Star wars: force for change. Retrieved on April 18, 2016 from

http://www.starwars.com/

New Media Consortium. (n.d.). NMC horizon. Retrieved from http://www.nmc.org/nmc-

horizon/ 

IEEE RAS, (2016). Robotics & automation society: robotics history project. Retrieved

May 23, 2016 from

http://www.ieee-ras.org/educational-resources-outreach/robotics-history-project.

Sull, D. (1999). Why good companies go bad. Retrieved May 23, 2016 from

https://hbr.org/1999/07/why-good-companies-go-bad.