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TOWARDS HUMAN-PROFILE BASED OPERATIONS
IN ADVANCED FACTORY GOVERNANCE SYSTEMS:
CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES FOR
SOCIO-TECHNICAL SYSTEMS DESIGN?
F.M. van Eijnatten 1 and J.B.M. Goossenaerts 2
1
Human Performance Management Group,
2
Information Systems Group,
12
Research School for Operations Management and Logistics (BETA)
Department of Technology Management,
Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600 MB Eindhoven, NL
ABSTRACT
This paper is about the requirements for an advanced factory governance system. Five capital assets are
distinguished: Natural, artificial, human, social, and financial. A factory's operations involve and affect
these five capital assets. To scope workers' activities with respect to objectives that exist for these capi-
tal assets, this paper applies insights from Manufacturing System Design Decomposition. It is argued
that in an advanced factory governance system the workers do also engage in governance and manage-
ment activities. We introduce the decision-object hierarchies and an extended generic activity model,
and explain how human profiles are derived from these. Sociotechnical systems design can be used in
such a system to balance 'control by the system', and 'self-control' by the workers involved.
KEYWORDS
Information systems design methodology, information storage, advanced factory governance, capital
assets management, human-centered manufacturing, socio-technical systems, decision-objects hierar-
chy, manufacturing systems design decomposition, generic activity model, decisional reference model.
INTRODUCTION
Socio-Technical Systems Design (STSD) is a dominant human-factors design approach to develop a
human-centered, technology enabled, team-based, manufacturing system (Van Eijnatten, 1993). STSD
asserts that the human factor is of vital importance for the successful functioning of intelligent manu-
th
facturing systems (Vink et al., 2002). STSD was used in the European Union 5 Framework 1ST pro-
ject 'PSIM' (Participative Simulation Environment for Integral Manufacturing Enterprise Renewal)
that was part of the global Human-Machine Coexisting Systems project (HUMACS). HUMACS was
aimed at developing a 'Human-Factors Centered Manufacturing Enterprise' in which people give full