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The Royal Navy’s manpower planning system represents a highly complex queue which aims to provide sufficient manpower to meet both operational and structural commitments. This queue is affected by many variables and therefore it is essential to understand the influence of these variables and also the interactions (if any) among the variables. Experimental design (ED) is a potent technique to accomplish the above objective. As real experimentation was impractical and infeasible, a computer‐based simulation was developed to model the system which needs to be studied. This paper illustrates how computer simulation and experimental design was applied to identify the key risk variables within the manpower planning system at the UK’s Royal Navy.

The paper examines a recent example of work and employment restructuring in the Royal Navy. This involved the creation of a new employment branch (the Warfare Branch) out of two former branches: the Operations Branch and the Weapon Engineering Branch. The case study is used as a vehicle for exploring whether, and if so in what senses, technical change can be argued to have contributed to this organizational restructuring, within the wider contexts and dynamics of change.