Time oriented is simple. All you have to do is show up to work and punch in/out time cards. This system requires supervision and you have to be at work at the same time as your supervisors.

ROWE is more complex and requires a well educated work force. It requires skills sets suited for results oriented work.

I have seen first hand how difficult it is to implement result oriented approaches in the IT project management field. For results oriented to succeed you need a critical mass of team players that really understand the approach. You also need well educated managers and project managers that understand results oriented.

Time,motion, and method studies are still required with results oriented. I would even say that they are more important with results oriented than with time oriented. Time is a scarce resource for any living being and proper use of time and energy will always be important.

I think the problems with time based is more one of synchronous vs asynchronous. The industrial revolution create the synchronous man. (everyone eats at the same hour). Information technologies and transportation now makes it possible to return to asynchronous production modes.

Note that Results oriented will also transform considerably over the next few years. That concept will adapt to a network/packet paradigm and we should see smaller and smaller parcels for delivery by one production unit. The baby boomers will soon be out of the production processes.

In my opinion we will get better yield if we think in terms of synch/asynch rather that time vs results oriented. We will have to learn how to deliver in asynchronous manners.

Gilbert