Fuji Xerox has been conducting research on the Real Organizational Behavior Audit Service (ROBAS), which supports organizational improvement activities by measuring actual collaborations in the field via sensors and then performing analysis to utilize the obtained data.
In the past, it has been difficult for the management to view and measure field activities. However, ROBAS realizes the real-time extraction of collaborations in the real world using sensors such as RFID. Furthermore, it enables the more detailed analysis of organizational behaviors by focusing on daily changes and on specific periods and targets in the collaborations. In this research, Fuji Xerox has been working to develop a new service technology that would enable management to actualize a more efficient organization in which individuals will collaborate and interact to create new values.


Fig.1 shows the application of organizational analysis in which the degree of interdepartmental collaboration is expressed by line width. With this application, otherwise invisible collaborations in the field organization can be measured and visualized quantitatively. Furthermore, an analyst can operate the application interactively to analyze interorganizational collaboration and communication from every angle and comprehend time-series changes. In this way, management will be able to understand its organization based on the actual behavior data in the field, thus enabling it to conduct organizational design and optimum workforce allocation. Such novel techniques are expected to completely redefine the existing management style.

Through in-company demonstration experiments, Fuji Xerox has analyzed its actual organizational behaviors in real time and on demand, through which it has found communication imbalances between the collaborated organizations. Based on the identified information, those imbalances have been improved in the organizational structure, confirming the actual effects.

In addition to the support for the management in ROBAS, research for the field employees has also been conducted.



Fig.2 shows the ROB (Real Organization Behavior) Visualizer, which is the tool that enables visualization of employee behavior in real time, and displays the behavior status of the entire organization??information that people otherwise cannot see from their own desks. By visualizing the group-forming status of employees within the organization, awareness of various interactions within the organization can be provided. This tool assists users in making assumptions on the nature of interactions in each formed group, based on how groups are formed or dissolved, which is detected via sensor networks.

In the demonstration experiment Fuji Xerox has been conducting, active-type RFID tags are distributed to approximately 400 employees to detect each individual’s location, and receivers are placed in several areas within the office to form the individual location detection system.

The architecture of the individual location detection system is shown in Fig.3. In Layer 1, an individual location log is created from the data detected via sensor networks. In Layer 2, organizational behavior data is created by aggregating the individual location data. In Layer 3, logical conditions are described to process those obtained data. In Layer 4, various organizational analysis applications and work support services are provided using the processed data in Layer 3.


This research aims to build an environment that promotes creation and utilization of knowledge from both management and employee perspectives.