Page 301 - Mechatronics for Safety, Security and Dependability in a New Era

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may find him or herself and to the responsibilities vested in the person. Depending on the kind of event
that occurs - expected (prediction), anticipated (contingency), or unexpected (threats to the capital as-
sets, adaptiveness) - the person will perform prescribed operations or engage in reflective activities
with the purpose to bring the operations or situation in line with objectives. In the most general case,
the input can be of any kind, ranging from a routine-production order, over a new guideline on toxic
materials, to the occurrence of a disaster or attack.
ADVANCE FACTORY GOVERNANC
D
E
Figure 1 shows how the sub-hierarchies of objectives, decision variables and performance indicators
(for ROI, Part A) are linked to the EGAM for factory operations (Part B). A similar action must be per-
formed for all relevant hierarchies of decision objects. As also the factory itself will have a structure,
for each organizational element some of the decision objects (its scope, a projection of the overall hier-
archy) will matter, and all reflective activities must be assumed. The new demands on factories will re-
quire us to do additional objective breakdown for non-financial (i.e., natural, artifactual, social capital
assets). As eco-system objectives may be subject to change, the question is how to ensure continuous
alignment.

For each kind of capital asset, the question is how the reflective activities are best allocated. The more
mobile a capital asset is, e.g. financial capital, or the larger share in the time or impact on assets the op-
erations have, e.g. manufacturing activities in JIT production facilities, the more need there is for con-
trol of the operations themselves. In the case of emergencies on the other hand, there is need for auton-
omy and immediate and effective reflection and response.

CONCLUSIONS
Advanced factory governance systems require a mix of controls and autonomy to continuously achieve
objectives for all allocated assets. Basic ideas from Socio-Technical Systems Design - predominantly
autonomy and self-regulation - might be combined with characteristics of capital assets, in order to ar-
rive at a better balance between the amount of control that is executed by the factory system, and the a-
mount of self-control that is left to the teams of human agents. A (cell) situation-specific mix of gov-
ernance, management and operational powers with respect to all relevant kinds of assets is expressed in
a profile. In relation to natural, human, and social capitals more autonomy is likely. For instance, the a-
mount of environmental protection could be left to the discretion of the human stakeholders. But also
aspects of safety and security are open to certain human autonomy over the system. Factory governance
systems should leave maximum degrees of freedom for the way (order, pace and method) humans exe-
cute their work. What is actually left to the discretion of the human beings will influence positively the
motivations and subsequent responsible performances of these agents in an intelligent manufacturing
system. In a total asset context, where operations are challenged by frequent adjustment of objectives,
or by the occurrence of rare unwanted events, Socio-Technical System Design offers instruments to de-
termine and maintain a proper balance between self-regulation by human agents and automatic control
by the factory-governance system.

REFERENCES
Bovenkamp M. van de, Jongkind R., Rhijn G. van, Eijnatten F. van, Grote G., Lehtela J., Leskinen T.,
Little S., Vink P., and Wafler T. (2002). The E/ S tool: IT Support for Ergonomic and Sociotechnical
System Design. In: Yamada S. (Ed.), Humacs Project: Organizational Aspects of Human-Machine
Co-existing Systems (pp. 67-81). Tokyo, Japan: IMS/HUMACS Consortium, CD-Rom, March.