Applying flexible working hours in production areas

The introduction of flexible working hours in manufacturing/production areas has been resisted strongly by line management in the UK who fear that a change in this management control system will lead to loss of output and/or productivity. Early research concentrated on those technological variables likely to be affected by work week re-structuring. Latterly, the approach has been widened to cover the matching of the whole socio-technical structure of the organisation with a suitable configuration of flexible working hours. Field research in West German companies, where succesful applications have taken place in production areas, indicates that this approach is likely to be more fruitful than one based on technological variables only.