Machine Metaphor in Organizations: FedEx as a Case Study

Introduction: The Machine Metaphor

The machine metaphor for an organization is one of two orthodox metaphors in organizational theory, the other being the organization as an organism (Morgan, 1980). The machine metaphor dates to the work of Fayol and Taylor, wherein the organization was understood as a series of parts, each with a specific, mechanistic role to play in the organization's success (Morgan, 1980). This metaphor not only included machines and fixed assets, but also viewed employees as tools in much the same way. Workers were expected to perform specific tasks as outlined by management and would be measured in terms of their ability to complete those tasks accurately and quickly. The machine metaphor thus reduced labor to the role of a tool.

Managers in this model seek to design their machine by allocating resources to specific tasks at specific times, so that the machine can optimize output. The machine metaphor was particularly apt in manufacturing, where much of an organization's labor base worked as machine operators or otherwise performed fairly routine tasks. While automation and international outsourcing have reduced the relevance of the metaphor, there remain organizations that can be readily examined through the theoretical lens of the machine metaphor — including FedEx Express.

FedEx as a Machine

FedEx Express, the overnight arm of the logistics company, is designed around the machine metaphor. The structure of the organization was developed in the 1970s, based on the military model that founder and CEO Fred Smith experienced while serving in the U.S. Marines (Smith, 2008). The infrastructure was conceived as an organization consisting of a hub and satellite locations, each capable of processing locally, with the central hub handling the majority of shipments between each satellite location. The company grew physically to incorporate driver routes and other elements of the machine. The different locations were made identical — in the way that different parts of a machine performing the same task are all identical. Consider the tanks at a brewery: they may contain different types of beer, but they all perform the same job of fermenting and conditioning the product. Each FedEx location is much the same — essentially uniform, performing the same task.

The role of workers within FedEx is also machine-like, consistent with the orthodox view of the organization as machine. This view has traditionally not placed a high value on workers who express creativity or novel approaches to problems. FedEx guides every step of its employees' roles, including how many stops they should make and best practices for each critical task, ensuring that each individual employee performs each task in more or less the same way. It is known that human beings approach complex problems quite differently from machines (Baskin, 2000), yet FedEx has sought to have management learn from the company's collective experiences to regiment not only what each worker does, but how they do it, and even when. There is only a minimal amount of worker autonomy.

Just as a machine's performance hinges on its design and its ability to execute tasks in the prescribed manner, the same holds for the different categories of workers at FedEx. Management is responsible for the success of each station by directing the workers, and workers are tasked primarily with the precise execution of their daily duties. Where there are defects or deviations, those are likely to be classified as "operator error" — an employee acting against company policy.

A machine can be improved, usually by someone examining the machine and its tasks, analyzing the feedback it provides, and subsequently changing parts or adjusting its design. This is more or less the process that FedEx follows. One of the valuable aspects of machines, consistent with traditional Taylorist orthodoxy, is that machine outputs can almost always be quantified. Decision-making at FedEx heavily emphasizes quantification. Data is used to determine best practices for overall performance. Because the company tracks each package, each route, and each worker, it has an enormous amount of data that helps identify ways in which the machine can be improved. An individual machine improvement — say, a new way of performing a task at one single station — can usually be extrapolated across the entire company. This is both because the units within the company (each station) are very similar to one another, and because proposals for change are backed by a substantial amount of data demonstrating the value of the change.

The Functions

While the machine metaphor is apt for analyzing the operations side of FedEx, the company has other functions as well. The machine metaphor, with its emphasis on bureaucracy and rules, should apply just as readily to other parts of the organization as it does to operations. The staff functions serve as support to the machine. Finance, marketing, accounting, and other staff functions are almost like adjuncts to the machine rather than parts of the machine itself. Finance and accounting might best fit the metaphor as the fuel that powers the machine — a critical input that allows the machine to work, but one that does not directly assist the machine in its tasks. Marketing relates more to machine capacity: that capacity must expand or contract in response to marketing activity.

The marketing function itself is somewhat less machine-like in nature, simply because sales often involves the very human task of relationship formation. Yet there is a theory that sales can itself be a highly machine-like process, characterized by a formal sales process in which sales managers emphasize procedural discipline so that all sales staff can emulate the success of star performers (Adamson, Dixon, and Toman, 2013). At FedEx, the other functions are similarly regimented. They are machines, and their function is tethered to the core operational machine. The staff functions are, in essence, the other machines that support the main machine. If FedEx's operations are a pizza oven, the other machines in the company are cooking the sauce, grating the cheese, and slicing the toppings. They are not the star of the show, but without them the end product will simply not be the same.

Conclusion

The machine metaphor is easy to visualize in the case of FedEx because this is a classical organization with both fixed assets and human workers operating alongside them. Many modern companies are knowledge-only enterprises, and it is harder to see the value of the metaphor in those contexts. But for a company that still operates with assembly-line-like processes — much as one might have found in a traditional Taylorist factory — the machine metaphor remains apt. The metaphor is stretched somewhat by the influence of modern values of human autonomy, even within a generally regimented organization like FedEx, but it does not break. It remains a productive and largely accurate lens through which to understand how FedEx Express was built and how it continues to operate.

References

Adamson, B., Dixon, M., & Toman, N. (2013). Dismantling the sales machine. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved July 25, 2015, from https://hbr.org/2013/11/dismantling-the-sales-machine

Baskin, K. (2000). Corporate DNA: Organizational learning, corporate co-evolution. Emergence, 2(1), 34–49.

Koch, S., & Deetz, S. (2009). Metaphor analysis of social reality in organizations. Journal of Applied Communications Research, 9(1), 1–15.

Morgan, G. (1980). Paradigm metaphors and puzzle solving. Administrative Science Quarterly, 25(4), 605.

Smith, F. (2008). What the Marine Corps taught me can be seen every day in FedEx. Proceedings. Retrieved July 25, 2015, from