workplace reform can depend on factors that. if not prerequisite for its success, can provide compelling reasons for change. The business's survival might be threatened; an opportunity could have arisen for workers to boost the business's output; there may be clear production or productivity targets that everyone can Strive for and measure progress against.
But at Alcoa's aluminium smelter and rolling mill at Point Henry in Geelong, Victoria, a workplace reform program has succeeded in the absence of any of these factors.

 There was no prospect of increased production to soak up workers as productivity increased; the business was highly profitable; among, the most efficient in the world; and management never set targets.
Despite this the company has made changes that reduced its workforce by about 30% and resulted in better industrial relations and career opportunities. And it has done so without strikes. In 1989 the plant's managers began planning a reorganised workplace.
Human resources manager John O'Driscoll says several previous attempts at change

 had been disappointing. He says the company had tried Total Quality Management, Just in Time and just about every other management buzz phrase of the past decade without achieving the results it hoped for.