Implementing workflow automation systems: implications for management control

Automation has revolutionised industry and initiated profound economic change. In the past two decades, manufacturing productivity has seen substantial improvements, yet office productivity has remained practically unaffected. Workflow automation systems, a new class of system which focus on automating document flows, promises to redress this imbalance. The study looks at the implication of adoption of a workflow automation system and in particular the impact on the managerial control system. The financial service sector is a main adopter of this technology and many such companies are planning future implementation of workflow automation systems. The study sets out to explore the extent of the control features that will be included in the systems and attempts to ascertain the attitude of three groups i.e. users, managers and IT personnel. Their opinions on the consequences which this would have for the operation of the control process in their organisations were then documented and analysed. The control process model developed by J. Child (1984) proved useful in the classification of process control activities. Following analysis of the research data, an amendment to Child's framework is proposed.