Controlling: Control, or Controlling, Is One of The Managerial Functions
Controlling: Control, or Controlling, Is One of The Managerial Functions
Controlling: Control, or Controlling, Is One of The Managerial Functions
DEFINITIONS
In 1916, Henri Fayol formulated one of the first definitions of control as it
pertains to management:
Control of an undertaking consists of seeing that everything is being carried out
in accordance with the plan which has been adopted, the orders which have
been given, and the principles which have been laid down. Its object is to point
out mistakes in order that they may be rectified and prevented from recurring.
According to EFL Brech:
Control is checking current performance against pre-determined standards
contained in the plans, with a view to ensure adequate progress and
satisfactory performance.
According to Harold Koontz:
Controlling is the measurement and correction of performance in order to make
sure that enterprise objectives and the plans devised to attain them are
accomplished.
According to Stafford Beer:
Management is the profession of control.
Robert J. Mockler presented a more comprehensive definition of managerial
control:
Management control can be defined as a systematic effort by business
management to compare performance to predetermined standards, plans, or
objectives in order to determine whether performance is in line with these
standards and presumably in order to take any remedial action required to see
that human and other corporate resources are being used in the most effective
and efficient way possible in achieving corporate objectives.
Also control can be defined as "that function of the system that adjusts
operations as needed to achieve the plan, or to maintain variations from system
objectives within allowable limits". The control subsystem functions in close
harmony with the operating system. The degree to which they interact depends
on the nature of the operating system and its objectives. Stability concerns a
system's ability to maintain a pattern of output without wide fluctuations.
Rapidity of response pertains to the speed with which a system can correct
variations and return to expected output.
A political election can illustrate the concept of control and the importance of
feedback. Each party organizes a campaign to get its candidate selected and
outlines a plan to inform the public about both the candidate's credentials and
the party's platform. As the election nears, opinion polls furnish feedback about
the effectiveness of the campaign and about each candidate's chances to win.
Depending on the nature of this feedback, certain adjustments in strategy and/or
tactics can be made in an attempt to achieve the desired result.
From these definitions it can be stated that there is close link between planning
and controlling. Planning is a process by which an organization's objectives and
the methods to achieve the objectives are established, and controlling is a
process which measures and directs the actual performance against the planned
goals of the organization. Thus, goals and objectives are often referred to
as siamese twins of management. the managerial function of management and
correction of performance in order to make sure that enterprise objectives and
the goals devised to attain them being accomplished.
CHARACTERISTICS
Control is a continuous process
Control is a management process
Control is embedded in each level of organizational hierarchy
Control is forward looking
Control is closely linked with planning
Control is a tool for achieving organizational activities
Control is an end process
Control compares actual performance with planned performance*
Control point out the error in the execution process
Control helps in minimizing cost
Control helps in achieving standard
Control saves the time
Control helps management for monitoring performance
ELEMENTS
The four basic elements in a control system:
occur in the same sequence and maintain a consistent relationship to each other
in every system.[3]
The third element of control, the comparator, determines the need for correction
by comparing what is occurring with what has been planned. Some deviation
from the plan is usual and expected, but when variations are beyond those
considered acceptable, corrective action is required. It involves a sort of
preventative action which indicates that good control is being achieved.
The fourth element of control, the activator, is the corrective action taken to
return the system to its expected output. The actual person, device, or method
used to direct corrective inputs into the operating system may take a variety of
forms. It may be a hydraulic controller positioned by a solenoid or electric
motor in response to an electronic error signal, an employee directed to rework
the parts that failed to pass quality inspection, or a school principal who decides
to buy additional books to provide for an increased number of students. As long
as a plan is performed within allowable limits, corrective action is not
necessary; however, this seldom occurs in practice.
Information is the medium of control, because the flow of sensory data and later
the flow of corrective information allow a characteristic or condition of the
system to be controlled. To illustrate how information flow facilitates control,
let us review the elements of control in the context of information.
Relationship between the elements of control and real time
information
The primary requirement of a control system is that it maintains the level and
kind of output necessary to achieve the system's objectives. [5] It is usually
impractical to control every feature and condition associated with the system's
output. Therefore, the choice of the controlled item (and appropriate
information about it) is extremely important. There should be a direct
correlation between the controlled item and the system's operation. In other
words, control of the selected characteristic should have a direct relationship to
the goal or objective of the system.
Sensor
Thus, standards act as a lighthouse that warns & guides the ships at sea.
Standards are the benchmarks towards which efforts of entire organisation are
directed. These standards can be expressed both in quantitative and qualitative
terms.
Once the standards have been determined, the next step is to measure the actual
performance. The various techniques for measuring are sample checking,
performance reports, personal observation etc. However, in order to facilitate
easy comparison, the performance should be measured on same basis that the
standards have.
(b) Various ratios like gross profit ratio, debtor turnover ratio, return on
investment, current ratio etc. are calculated at periodic intervals to measure
company’s performance.
(c) Progress made in areas like marketing can be measured by considering the
number of units, increase in market share etc.
(e) In large organisation, the technique of sample checking is used. Under this
technique, some pieces are checked at random for quality specifications.
Some deviations are possible in all the activities. However, the deviation in the
important areas of business needs to be corrected more urgently as compared to
deviation in insignificant areas. Management should use critical point control
and management by exception in such areas.
Since it is neither easy nor economical to check each and every activity in an
organisation, the control should focus on Key Result Areas (KRAs) which act
as the critical points. The KRAs are very essential for the success of an
organisation. Therefore, the entire organisation has to suffer if anything goes
wrong at these points. For example, in a manufacturing organisation, an
increase of 7% in labour cost is more troublesome than an 18% increase in
stationary expenses.
After identifying the deviations, various causes for these deviations are
analyzed. The main causes can be structural drawbacks, shortage of resources,
environmental factors beyond organisational control, unrealistic standards,
defective process etc. Exact cause or causes of deviation must be identified
correctly in order to take effective corrective measures.
The last step in the process of controlling involves taking corrective action. If
the deviations are within acceptable limits, no corrective measure is required.
However, if the deviations exceed acceptable limits, they should be immediately
brought to the notice of the management for taking corrective measures,
especially in the important areas.
KINDS OF CONTROLLING
Control may be grouped according to three general classifications:
1. the nature of the information flow designed into the system (open- or
closed-loop control)
2. the kind of components included in the design (man or machine control
systems)
3. the relationship of control to the decision process (organizational or
operational control).
Open- and closed-loop control
A street-lighting system controlled by a timing device is an example of an open-
loop system. At a certain time each evening, a mechanical device closes the
circuit and energy flows through the electric lines to light the lamps. Note,
however, that the timing mechanism is an independent unit and is not measuring
the objective function of the lighting system. If the lights should be needed on a
dark, stormy day the timing device would not recognize this need and therefore
would not activate energy inputs. Corrective properties may sometimes be built
into the controller (for example, to modify the time the lights are turned on as
the days grow shorter or longer), but this would not close the loop. In another
instance, the sensing, comparison, or adjustment may be made through action
taken by an individual who is not part of the system. For example, the lights
may be turned on by someone who happens to pass by and recognizes the need
for additional light.
If control is exercised as a result of the operation rather than because of outside
or predetermined arrangements, it is a closed-loop system. The home thermostat
is the classic example of a control device in a closed-loop system. When the
room temperature drops below the desired point, the control mechanism closes
the circuit to start the furnace and the temperature rises. The furnace-activating
circuit is turned off as the temperature reaches the preselected level. The
significant difference between this type of system and an open-loop system is
that the control device is an element of the system it serves and measures the
performance of the system. In other words, all four control elements are integral
to the specific system.
An essential part of a closed-loop system is feedback; that is, the output of the
system is measured continually through the item controlled, and the input is
modified to reduce any difference or error toward zero. Many of the patterns of
information flow in organizations are found to have the nature of closed loops,
which use feedback. The reason for such a condition is apparent when one
recognizes that any system, if it is to achieve a predetermined goal, must have
available to it at all times an indication of its degree of attainment. In general,
every goal-seeking system employs feedback.
The elements of control are easy to identify in machine systems. For example,
the characteristic to be controlled might be some variable like speed or
temperature, and the sensing device could be a speedometer or a thermometer.
An expectation of precision exists because the characteristic is quantifiable and
the standard and the normal variation to be expected can be described in exact
terms. In automatic machine systems, inputs of information are used in a
process of continual adjustment to achieve output specifications. When even a
small variation from the standard occurs, the correction process begins. The
automatic system is highly structured, designed to accept certain kinds of input
and produce specific output, and programmed to regulate the transformation of
inputs within a narrow range of variation.
For an illustration of mechanical control: as the load on a steam engine
increases and the engine starts to slow down, the regulator reacts by opening a
valve that releases additional inputs of steam energy. This new input returns the
engine to the desired number of revolutions per minute. This type of mechanical
control is crude in comparison to the more sophisticated electronic control
systems in everyday use. Consider the complex missile-guidance systems that
measure the actual course according to predetermined mathematical calculations
and make almost instantaneous corrections to direct the missile to its target.