science

Work systems

Work systems is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Work systems rather than just read about it. In short: A work system is a socio-technical system in which human participants and/or machines perform tasks using information, technology, and other resources to produce products and services for internal or external customers. Typical business organizations contain work systems that procure materials from suppliers, produce products, deliver products to customers, find customers, create financial reports, hire employees, c…

Key takeaways

Work systems belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Work systems to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Work systems from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

A work system is a socio-technical system in which human participants and/or machines perform tasks using information, technology, and other resources to produce products and services for internal or external customers. Typical business organizations contain work systems that procure materials from suppliers, produce products, deliver products to customers, find customers, create financial reports, hire employees, coordinate work across departments, and perform many other functions. The concept is widely used in understanding IT-reliant systems within organizations and has been a topic of academic study since at least 1977.

Overview The term "work system" has been used loosely in many areas. This article concerns its use in understanding IT-reliant systems in organizations. A notable use of the term occurred in 1977 in the first volume of MIS Quarterly in two articles by Bostrom and Heinen. Later Sumner and Ryan used it to explain problems in the adoption of CASE (computer-aided software engineering). A number of socio-technical systems researchers such as Trist and Mumford also used the term occasionally, but seemed not to define it in detail. In contrast, the work system approach defines work system carefully and uses it as a basic analytical concept. The work system concept is like a common denominator for many of the types of systems that operate within or across organizations. Operational information systems, service systems, projects, supply chains, and ecommerce web sites can all be viewed as special cases of work systems.

An information system is a work system whose processes and activities are devoted to processing information. A service system is a work system that produces services for its customers. A project is a work system designed to produce a product and then go out of existence. A supply chain is an interorganizational work system devoted to procuring materials and other inputs required to produce a firm's products. An ecommerce web site can be viewed as a work system in which a buyer uses a seller's web site to obtain product information and perform purchase transactions. The relationship between work systems in general and the special cases implies that the same basic concepts apply to all of the special cases, which also have their own specialized vocabulary. In turn, this implies that much of the body of knowledge for the current information systems discipline can be organized around a work system core. Specific information systems exist to support (other) work systems. Many different degrees of overlap are possible between an information system and a work system that it supports. For example, an information system might provide information for a non-overlapping work system, as happens when a commercial marketing survey provides information to a firm's marketing managers In other cases, an information system may be an integral part of a work system, as happens in highly automated manufacturing and in ecommerce web sites. In these situations, participants in the work system are also participants in the information system, the work system cannot operate properly without the information system, and the information system has little significance outside of the work system.

Work system framework

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Work systems

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Work systems claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Work systems before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Work systems ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Work systems

In research: Work systems appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Work systems in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Work systems is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Business process management, Information systems, Management systems, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Work systems outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Work systems in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Work systems means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Work systems out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Work systems in simple terms?

Why does Work systems matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Work systems?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Work systems.