Real Organizational Behavior Audit Service (ROBAS)

Fuji Xerox has been conducting research on the Real Organizational Behavior Audit Service (ROBAS) that supports organizational innovation by measuring actual collaborations in the field using ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and various types of sensor log information, and conducting analysis from managerial and organizational perspectives.

Fig. 1 below shows a case of visualizing the amount of e-mails (expressed by line width) exchanged between sales representatives (red circles) and their customers (blue circles), using an analytical tool of ROBAS. In Group A, each customer is contacted by more than one sales representative. In contrast, Group B shows a one-on-one relationship between the customer and sales representative. In this way, organizational activities can be visualized, thereby making more advanced analysis possible in combination with other indexes (e.g. sales, customer satisfaction, man-hours spent on marketing activities).

Fig. 2 below visualizes the individual environmental load in the office, which ROBAS can calculate by measuring an individual's location and the time spent in the office via sensors. The first graph indicates the amount of environmental load per area where individual activity takes place in a day. The second graph indicates the individual environmental load in the office or a conference room used by more than one person, with calculation based on the number of people and their roles. For example, it is inefficient when only a few people use a large conference room, resulting in a larger environmental load (with higher points shown in the graph). The third graph compares the current total environmental load of an individual with past data and the departmental average. These feedbacks can be used to achieve greater awareness of environmental friendliness and visualize the effects of improvements based on individual work style.

With ROBAS, actual collaborations within an organization are modeled quantitatively by using the ICT log (e-mail, etc.) and sensors (RFID, etc.). ROBAS offers a real-time understanding of organizational activities and an analysis of organizational coordination focusing on a specific period of time and target. Therefore, it is now possible to determine behavioral organizational activities as well as the results of those activities, and implement measures on a timely basis, which has proved difficult in existing management systems.