Editing Division of labour (section)

==Limitations==

[[Adam Smith]] famously said in ''[[The Wealth of Nations]]'' that the division of labour is limited by the extent of the market. This is because it is by the exchange that each person can be specialised in their work and yet still have access to a wide range of goods and services. Hence, reductions in barriers to exchange lead to increases in the division of labour and so help to drive economic growth. Limitations to the division of labour have also been related to coordination and transportation costs.<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1111/j.1467-6435.1956.tb02717.x | volume=9 | issue=2 | year=1956 | journal=Kyklos | pages=181–189 | last1 = Houthakker | first1 = H. S.| title=Economics and Biology: Specialization and Speciation }}</ref>

There can be motivational advantages to a reduced division of labour (which has been termed ‘[[job enlargement]]’ and '[[job enrichment]]').<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1348/096317901167460 | volume=74 | issue=4 | title=Future work design research and practice: Towards an elaborated model of work design | year=2001 | journal=Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology | pages=413–440 | last1 = Parker | first1 = Sharon K. | last2 = Wall | first2 = Toby D. | last3 = Cordery | first3 = John L.| s2cid=53985589 |url=http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d6a3/f011a4dd846c8bfb99b8f7bd87f870c18a57.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190306230009/http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d6a3/f011a4dd846c8bfb99b8f7bd87f870c18a57.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=2019-03-06 }}</ref> Jobs that are too specialised in a narrow range of tasks are said to result in demotivation due to boredom and alienation. Hence, a [[Taylorism|Taylorist]] approach to work design contributed to worsened industrial relations.

There are also limitations to the division of labour (and the division of work) that result from [[workflow]] variations and uncertainties.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wadeson |first=Nigel |date=2013 |title=The Division of Labour under Uncertainty |url=http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/28821/6/divOfLAB.pdf |journal=Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics |language=en |volume=169 |issue=2 |pages=253 |doi=10.1628/093245613X13620416111326 |s2cid=27802191 |issn=0932-4569 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190427205326/http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/28821/6/divOfLAB.pdf |archive-date=2019-04-27}}</ref><ref>Barrera, Catherine Grace. 2014. "[https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/12274210/Barrera_gsas.harvard_0084L_11617.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y Skill, Job Design, and the Labor Market under Uncertainty]" (Doctoral dissertation). [[Harvard University]]. [[Harvard Library|Harvard Library ID]]:{{Spaces|1}}[http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:12274210 12274210].</ref> These help to explain issues in modern work organisation, such as task consolidations in [[business process reengineering|business process re-engineering]] and the use of multi-skilled work teams. For instance, one stage of a production process may temporarily work at a slower pace, forcing other stages to slow down. One answer to this is to make some portion of resources mobile between stages so that those resources must be capable of undertaking a wider range of tasks. Another is to consolidate tasks so that they are undertaken one after another by the same workers and other resources. Stocks between stages can also help to reduce the problem to some extent but are costly and can hamper quality control. Modern [[flexible manufacturing system]]s require both flexible machines and flexible workers.

In '''project-based work''', the coordination of resources is a difficult issue for the [[project manager]] as project [[Schedule (project management)|schedules]] and resulting resource bookings are based on [[Estimation (project management)|estimates]] of task durations and so are subject to subsequent revisions. Again, consolidating tasks so that they are undertaken consecutively by the same resources and having resources available that can be called on at short-notice from other tasks can help to reduce such problems, though at the cost of reduced specialisation.

There are also advantages in a reduced division of labour where knowledge would otherwise have to be transferred between stages.<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1016/j.ejor.2003.07.015 | volume=161 | issue=3 | title=Activity consolidation to improve responsiveness | year=2005 | journal=European Journal of Operational Research | pages=683–703 | last1 = Rummel | first1 = Jeffrey L. | last2 = Walter | first2 = Zhiping | last3 = Dewan | first3 = Rajiv | last4 = Seidman | first4 = Abraham}}</ref> For example, having a single person deal with a customer query means that only that one person has to be familiar with the customer's details. It is also likely to result in the query being handled faster due to the elimination of delays in passing the query between different people.