Contrary to popular folklore among engineers, there is no such thing as an automation fairy. Joking aside, the task of making things faster, easier, and more streamlined can, depending on the process, be extraordinarily complicated. Looking at a recent report released by Xerox, 80% of businesses surveyed wanted to streamline paper-based workflows; moreover, 46% confirmed that paper-intensive processes are wasting time, and 60% see this as having a substantial impact on their profits. Having identified the problem and knowing what result they desire; these companies must develop a solution based around today’s word, where an operational framework, in the context of business, describes a company’s organisational structure and outlines its policies, standards and goals.
Though it may sound complicated, today’s word, framework, is essentially a structure for enclosing or supporting another structure. A compounding of the initially Old Norse word frame, meaning ‘something that gives a basis of structure,’ and the Proto-Germanic work, in this case, meaning ‘the action of establishing,’ the term can be used in its initial, literal sense, such as with the frame of a building or, indeed, the human skeleton, as well as in the modern, figurative sense, with applications such as automation, software, and overall business planning.
While, in simplistic terms, a theoretical framework may have a lot in common with an outline or a progressive timeline, it needs to be more complicated in order to consider other often overlooked aspects. Using the example of our Xerox survey, there’s more to establishing a framework than just saying “we’re going to lessen paper-based workflows” and seeking to improve by blindly changing systems, which could cause more issues than it fixes. Conversely, developing a comprehensive framework would allow for the examination of different systems and layers, how they interrelate, and how to standardise communication, essentially allowing the business to operate as synergistically and efficiently as possible.
The first known use of the word framework occurs in the 1578 work The Historie of Man by anatomist John Banister who, likening the human skeleton to a framework by remarking presumably on the ribcage writes that: “The..ridgebeam of a ship..whereunto the chief studs, or posts of the framework are mortised.” As an abstract concept, the word was first used by Joshua Kirby in 1754, who wrote that: “I have added the Figure A, which represents, as it were, the Frame-work of the other; and will serve to explain the Thing more fully.”, in Dr. Brook Taylor’s Method of Perspective Made Easy, in which he adapts the mathematician’s work to the art of painting.
