The problem with workarounds is that they work: The persistence of resource shortages

Abstract

Industrious, well-intentioned workers often improvise in situ solutions to workplace challenges foist on them by shortcomings of the systems in which they work. For example, resource shortages trigger workplace pressures that may stimulate front line coping mechanisms, often called workarounds. There has been surprisingly little attention to questions about why these resource shortages occur and even more insidiously why they persist despite the apparently clear adverse consequences. Motivated by field work at a manufacturing firm adopting lean manufacturing, this paper develops a system dynamics model to understand chronic resource shortages and calls attention to the nature of workarounds as both a solution to a front line problem and a mask of the underlying system weakness. The model illuminates how the actions of various groups (e.g., managers, production workers, and other shop floor workers) interact with each other and with the physical characteristics of the workplace to sustain problematic resource shortages.