The Technical System encompasses the computer system, its physical environment, and operator tools. The Social System involves the informal interaction roles and relationships that exist among workers. This research is part of a larger grounded theory research study examining what contributes to TPS reliability. We iterated between data gathering, analysis and model building. Current Status A portion of the twenty interviews have been analyzed.
Findings reported here are primarily descriptive.
These descriptions contribute by identifying two difficult systems operations issues that merit further research. From the open and axial coding, we are developing a detailed theoretical model of what leads to TPS reliability at XYZCo. I. Implementation Testing Controls and Change Management employs a strategy of protecting the TPS against application complexity. XYZCo's TPS consists of about 35,000 interacting segments of real time application code. New code enters the system weekly, and over 30,000 segments are changed each year.