Corrections – 1998-07-01

Three column headings were mislabeled on the "Humans, PCs Shift Division of Labor" chart in the "Human element gains importance in enterprise integration" article on p. 21 in the June 1998 issue of Control Engineering. The mislabeling switched the "% of decisions by computers" heading with the "% of decisions by computers" heading, reversed the chart's actual findings, and made the "Pro...

By Staff July 1, 1998

Three column headings were mislabeled on the “Humans, PCs Shift Division of Labor” chart in the “Human element gains importance in enterprise integration” article on p. 21 in the June 1998 issue of Control Engineering. The mislabeling switched the “% of decisions by computers” heading with the “% of decisions by computers” heading, reversed the chart’s actual findings, and made the “Projected % of human-based decisions” heading unreadable. A corrected version of the chart is printed below. Control Engineering regrets this error.

HUMANS, PCs SHIFT DIVISION OF LABOR
The tasks most enterprises must complete to function and survive can be divided into human-based decisions supported by computer systems and computer system-based decisions monitored by humans. The following percentages show how decisions are often split between these decision makers in the various levels of the Purdue Hierarchical Model, and how those percentages are likely to change in the future.

Level % of decisions by humans % of decisions by computers Projected change in % of human-based decisions
Source: Institute for Interdisciplinary Engineering Studies, Purdue University, 1998.
Overall enterprise management 100 0 0
Overall production planning, scheduling 90 10 -22
Scheduling, of plant’s connected units 70 30 -71
Supervisory control of process units 25 75 -60
Dynamic control of process units 10 90 -100