The future factory : a concept designed by women and young people

In focus in this paper is the Future Factory, a research project involving women, young people and other stakeholders in workplace design and development. Drawing on the idea of ‘good work', efficient as well as attractive factories and interactive methods, the vision of the project is to both develop methods for such processes as well as to design a Future Factory on a conceptual level together with the participants. These participants include young people and women, as they are not attracted by factory work and face problems when working in industry. Management and union representatives are other stakeholders included in the project. In this paper we present the background of the project as well as the interactive methods used. These include future work-shops as well as the use of personas and scenarios to stimulate engagement of the participants. We also present some of the results, both in terms of the methods used and the participants' views on ‘good work'. The results are that the methods used did stimulate active participation, that they facilitated the focus and discussions on different problem situations. As a result of future workshops, it can also be concluded that young peoples' view on industrial work can be described in terms of a utopian as well as a dystopian vision. Both groups of participants indicate that ‘good work' should include possibilities of learning and development, tasks that are challenging and stimulating as well as autonomy. Furthermore, work should be carried out in teams, manufacturing facilities are important for the workplace culture and should contribute to healthy and attractive factories. Based on these results, it can be concluded that there are possibilities of developing methods that contribute to sustainable and attractive work places for both women and men.Godkänd; 2009; Bibliografisk uppgift: 1 CD-ROM; 20100127 (asawi