Attractive Manufacturing

Sociotechnical systems (STS) research has not received much attention in the last decade, at least not in terms of its original foundation in a production system context. The main challenge in modern sociotechnical thinking is that STS has neglected its roots in technology and nowadays focuses more at a general social perspective on work. The “S”-view overshadows the “T”-view, and the fruitful link between the technical system and the social system is thereby lost. In this sense, STS is dead. Now, due to recent and future developments in technology, strong awareness is called for in regard to a common interplay between the social and the technical system. Increasingly, competitiveness in high-tech manufacturing industries depends on a complex interaction between state-of-the-art technologies such as automation and information systems, and organisational or social factors such as knowledge, learning, communication and innovation. However, up to now, efforts at improvement and development in these industries have been clearly biased towards the technology side. A combined social- and technological perspective is now needed if implementation of further technology shall pay off. This paper argues that sociotechnical systems research, if revised, could be a promising path when preparing for the manufacturing future