Jan Johansson - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Jan Johansson
Sustainability, 2017
In order to effectively analyze, control, and prevent occupational health risk and ensure the rel... more In order to effectively analyze, control, and prevent occupational health risk and ensure the reliability of the weight, a method based on FMEA (failure mode and effects analysis) and an improved AHP (analytic hierarchy process) model was established. The occupational disease of the occupational health and safety management system (OHSAS18001) of the mining industry in the southwest of Hubei Province is taken as an example, the three most significant risk factors (dust, noise, and gas) are selected as the research objects, the FMEA method is used, an expert questionnaire is carried out to establish the comprehensive assessment matrix of each indicator according to the RPN (risk priority number) value, and, finally, a case study is conducted through the FMEA and the improved AHP model The results show that the occupational disease of the mining industry's occupational health and safety management system belongs to a "general" grade, which is in line with the physical examination results of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Ezhou City in 2015. The improved AHP and FMEA comprehensive assessment model of occupational disease is proved feasible. This method can be incorporated in the process management of the enterprise for the purpose of occupational disease prevention in advance and continuous improvement on the occupational health and safety of employees. Additionally, the area research on this integrated model should be optimized continually in actual situations.
The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a futureoriented human work environment and organiz... more The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a futureoriented human work environment and organizational activity in deep mines that entails a vision of good and safe workplace. Futureoriented technological challenges and mental images required for modern work organization design were appraised. It is argued that an intelligent-deep-mine covering the entire value chain, including environmental issues and with work organization that supports good working and social conditions towards increased human productivity could be designed. With such intelligent system and work organization in place, the mining industry could be seen as a place where cooperation, skills development and gender equality are key components. By this perspective, both the youth and women might view mining activity as an attractive job and the work environment as a safe, and this could go a long way in breaking the unequal gender balance that exists in most mines today.
Attractive mining workplaces are good, safe and healthy workplaces. They are also workplaces that... more Attractive mining workplaces are good, safe and healthy workplaces. They are also workplaces that the workforce of the future wants to work in. As skilled miners and engineers are already scarce, this is important both for today and for the future. But future of mining will also be subject to increased international competition. In attempting to become more competitive, many mining companies turn to rationalisation, looking to both rationalise their production and organisation, as well as to optimise their processes. Work organisation is important in both rationalisation and providing attractive mining work. Therefore, a Lean Production philosophy is investigated for the organisation of future mines. The aim of this paper is to investigate to what extent Lean Production can be used to organise for attractive mining. To do so, it first need to be defined what attractive mining work is and to what degree it can be influenced by work organisation. A short insight into the production co...
2011 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, 2011
This paper looks at the challenges that most organizations, especially in the mining industry, fa... more This paper looks at the challenges that most organizations, especially in the mining industry, face in managing both technological and human activities along their value chains. The aim was to understand how the organization's technological, organizational and human components could be integrated to enhance collaboration and productive efficiency. Guided by an organizational activity theory framework, qualitative data were collected through interviews in a mining firm. The analysis of contradictions showed that production work in the mine is challenged due to the lack of proper coordination in task executions, with workers constrained in their task undertakings and unable to reduce downtime. It was concluded that firms can use the framework as an effective instrument, not only for organizational activity and work environment analyses, but as a tool for learning how to understand and manage the systemic characteristics of the technological, organizational and human components of their organizational activity systems.
The aim of this paper is to discuss how to form work and organisations in the mines of the future... more The aim of this paper is to discuss how to form work and organisations in the mines of the future. The Kiruna underground iron ore mine in the far north of Sweden is used as an example on how technical development affects organisational issues like skills, work identity and gender. Over a period of 50 years one can see a transformation of work from manual underground work to automation and remote control from surface level. What characterised the old underground workface was the close relation between man and the hard rock and with arduous physical work under dangerous conditions. Today, the face miners are located on the seventh level of an office building close to the mine. There is also an emerging, and in many aspects already evident, knowledge transformation - from the old and obsolete physical and tacit knowledge and skills (for example the ability to ‘read the rock') to something new, which can be described as abstract ‘high-tech' knowledge and skills. The modern tech...
Designing Ergonomic, Safe, and Attractive Mining Workplaces, 2018
Industry 4.0 offers new possibilities to combine increased productivity with stimulating workplac... more Industry 4.0 offers new possibilities to combine increased productivity with stimulating workplaces in a good work environment. Used correctly, digitalization can create attractive jobs in safe control room environments, which provide space for the employee's full expertise and creativity. This is true also for the mining industry. But, to succeed, it is important to analyze the development from a worker's perspective. What will happen to their work? What skills will be needed in the mine of tomorrow? We must also consider the risks, such as privacy issues, increased stress, and work-life boundaries. These questions must be understood if we are to create workplaces that can attract a young and diverse workforce to tomorrow's mining industry. In this article, we try to illustrate what the new technology can mean for the individual miners. We formulate the notion of Mining 4.0 (Industry 4.0 in the mining industry), where we try to create an image of how the future might look from a miner's perspective and how mining companies may navigate their way to a future that works for all miners. To illustrate the range of possible outcomes, we formulate two scenarios: one utopian and one dystopic. At the end of our article, we bring forward six recommendations that can be considered a beginning of a road map for the human side of Mining 4.0.
This paper looks at the challenges that most organizations face in the management of their work e... more This paper looks at the challenges that most organizations face in the management of their work environments, with respect to the tools that they can use to effectively capture both the explicit and tacit knowledge held by their employees for subsequent reuse when decisions need to be made. The problemidentification workshop (PIW), which is a participatory tool for enhancing the management of work environment in an organization, was tested in an organization. Participants identified organizational problems, proposed solutions to them, realistically assessed the desirability and possibility of these solutions, and finally recommended action plans to the organization for its short-term, intermediate and longterm design and management of effective work environment towards enhancing work life and productivity in the organization. It was concluded that PIW is a good socio-pedagogic method that can be used as an intelligent participatory intervention tool by managers in organizations in the management of their work environments.
Mineral Economics, 2020
The aim with this article is to discuss how changes in technology at workplaces engender both cha... more The aim with this article is to discuss how changes in technology at workplaces engender both change and restoration of gender constructions within the context of underground mining. The discussions are formed around a constructed case based on material from gender and organizational studies of large-scale industrial mines in different countries, most of them from Sweden. New technologies such as digitalization and automation together with new organizational forms engender changes in mining work, e.g., new types of work tasks, new competence demands, and a move from underground to high-tech control rooms aboveground. One main observation is that the changes challenge the old and recalcitrant blue-collar mining masculinity. On the one hand, the organizational resistance and “lagging” seemed to result in re-gendering and restoration of the male dominance. On the other hand, there were tendencies to adaptation in the workplace cultures, including new ways of forming mining masculinitie...
Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration, 2019
Industry 4.0 offers new possibilities to combine increased productivity with stimulating workplac... more Industry 4.0 offers new possibilities to combine increased productivity with stimulating workplaces in a good work environment. Used correctly, digitalization can create attractive jobs in safe control room environments, which provide space for the employee's full expertise and creativity. This is true also for the mining industry. But, to succeed, it is important to analyze the development from a worker's perspective. What will happen to their work? What skills will be needed in the mine of tomorrow? We must also consider the risks, such as privacy issues, increased stress, and work-life boundaries. These questions must be understood if we are to create workplaces that can attract a young and diverse workforce to tomorrow's mining industry. In this article, we try to illustrate what the new technology can mean for the individual miners. We formulate the notion of Mining 4.0 (Industry 4.0 in the mining industry), where we try to create an image of how the future might look from a miner's perspective and how mining companies may navigate their way to a future that works for all miners. To illustrate the range of possible outcomes, we formulate two scenarios: one utopian and one dystopic. At the end of our article, we bring forward six recommendations that can be considered a beginning of a road map for the human side of Mining 4.0.
2010 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, 2010
This paper looks at the challenges that most organizations face in the management of their work e... more This paper looks at the challenges that most organizations face in the management of their work environments, with respect to the tools that they can use to effectively capture both the explicit and tacit knowledge held by their employees for subsequent reuse when decisions need to be made. The problem-identification workshop, which is a macroergonomic tool for enhancing the management of work environment in an organization, was tested in an organization. Participants identified organizational problems, proposed solutions to them, realistically assessed the desirability and possibility of these solutions, and finally recommended action plans to the organization for its shortterm, intermediate and long-term design and management of effective work environment towards enhancing work life and productivity in the organization. It was concluded that problem-identification workshop is a good socio-pedagogic method that can be used as an intelligent participatory intervention tool by managers in organizations in the management of their work environments.
International Journal of Mining and Mineral Engineering, 2014
Future efficient mining operations will be dependent upon a highly competent and well motivated w... more Future efficient mining operations will be dependent upon a highly competent and well motivated work force, on all levels. The mining companies will have to recruit their personnel from a limited group of talented individuals with high demands and expectations on future work. In order to be successful with this, the companies must offer attractive workplaces that are safe, sound, interesting and can offer challenging work tasks too. In this paper we discuss a number of potential challenges for the future mining industry based on the fact that the majority of the mines are expected to be deeper and located in remote areas. Our intention is to illustrate a possible way forward for the mining industry. We start by describing a vision for such a safe and attractive mine. After that we present a comprehensive and possible research agenda necessary for creating the 'New Attractive Mine'.
Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, 2012
This article seeks to identify performance-enhancing strategies that could be used to improve and... more This article seeks to identify performance-enhancing strategies that could be used to improve and optimise human–technology collaboration in rock drilling ‘activity’ in deep mines. Results from the analysis of miners’ motor actions during rock drilling activity showed that by using procedurally driven strategies, they were able to perform simultaneously two specific tasks that required high levels of concentration and visual
Investments into the production technology of the future require a firm basis in the needs of pro... more Investments into the production technology of the future require a firm basis in the needs of production industry. However, gathering, sorting and ranking cross-industrial future needs remains a steep challenge to technology developers. Gathering feedback from just one or a few case companies can result in a biased set of priorities, since feedback from specific industrial sectors may often be highly influenced by their industry-and productspecific challenges. This paper describes a structured method called “Keyword Mingling” that ...
In order to comprehensively evaluate the employee satisfaction of mine occupational health and sa... more In order to comprehensively evaluate the employee satisfaction of mine occupational health and safety management system, an analytic method based on fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and 2- tuple linguistic model was established. Firstly, based on the establishment of 5 first- grade indicators and 20 second- grade ones, the weight of each indicator is calculated and validated by method of FAHP and root mean square model. Secondly, a path based on the time-ordered Weighted Averaging Operator (T-OWA) model is constructed. Finally, the model is validated by empirical analysis. The results demonstrate that the employee satisfaction of the mine occupational health and safety management system is of the “general” rank. The method including the comprehensive evaluation of employee satisfaction and the quantitative analysis of language evaluation information ensures the authenticity of the language evaluation information.
The good work is a concept established in the mid 1980s. It is a normative theory formulated by t... more The good work is a concept established in the mid 1980s. It is a normative theory formulated by the Swedish Metal Workers’ Union, now called IF Metall. Rather than being very innovative, the concept served more to summarise the values and visions that characterised the trade union movement of those days. In this essay, we will attempt to reconstruct the historic roots of the theory and discuss their relevance in relation to today’s industrial context where Lean Production and similar trends are important elements.
Incl. abstracts, tabl., bibl. Policies of educational expansion are enhanced in most European cou... more Incl. abstracts, tabl., bibl. Policies of educational expansion are enhanced in most European countries. Little attention is, however, paid to skill utilisation at work, learning context and gender-related barriers at work. Oversupply and under-utilisation of skilled labour might create mismatch problems and frustration at the workplace. The aim of this article is to give an overview of Swedish research on the interplay between education, work and learning . The intention is also to bridge over the gap between education research and research with emphasis on learning, development and change at workplaces. Our focus in the paper is on competence supply to and within working life. Attention is also given to overeducation and underlearning and the classical question of balancing supply and demand. The paper illustrates how occupations, professions and job skill requirements change or are stable and also different obstacles and conditions for work place learning.La plupart des pays euro...
Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies, 2013
The purpose of this article is to describe a broader concept of the psychosocial work environment... more The purpose of this article is to describe a broader concept of the psychosocial work environment, a concept that not only is limited to the individual and her immediate environment but also takes into account a broader context that includes production technology as well as work organization and learning. Based on examples from Sweden, we discuss concepts and approaches to psychosocial work environment and how these have changed over time (e.g., how knowledge about the psychosocial work environment is used to understand and discuss health, management, and development—for individuals, groups, and organizations). The knowledge presented is not new; it has been around a long time. The title of the article—One Hundred Years of Inertia—shows some impatience on the part of its authors given that the pace of change in the work environment has not always been great.
2011 Ieee International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, Dec 1, 2011
This paper looks at the challenges that most organizations face in the management of their work e... more This paper looks at the challenges that most organizations face in the management of their work environments, with respect to the tools that they can use to effectively capture both the explicit and tacit knowledge held by their employees for subsequent reuse when decisions need to be made. The problemidentification workshop (PIW), which is a participatory tool for enhancing the management of work environment in an organization, was tested in an organization. Participants identified organizational problems, proposed solutions to them, realistically assessed the desirability and possibility of these solutions, and finally recommended action plans to the organization for its short-term, intermediate and longterm design and management of effective work environment towards enhancing work life and productivity in the organization. It was concluded that PIW is a good socio-pedagogic method that can be used as an intelligent participatory intervention tool by managers in organizations in the management of their work environments.
Sustainability, 2017
In order to effectively analyze, control, and prevent occupational health risk and ensure the rel... more In order to effectively analyze, control, and prevent occupational health risk and ensure the reliability of the weight, a method based on FMEA (failure mode and effects analysis) and an improved AHP (analytic hierarchy process) model was established. The occupational disease of the occupational health and safety management system (OHSAS18001) of the mining industry in the southwest of Hubei Province is taken as an example, the three most significant risk factors (dust, noise, and gas) are selected as the research objects, the FMEA method is used, an expert questionnaire is carried out to establish the comprehensive assessment matrix of each indicator according to the RPN (risk priority number) value, and, finally, a case study is conducted through the FMEA and the improved AHP model The results show that the occupational disease of the mining industry's occupational health and safety management system belongs to a "general" grade, which is in line with the physical examination results of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Ezhou City in 2015. The improved AHP and FMEA comprehensive assessment model of occupational disease is proved feasible. This method can be incorporated in the process management of the enterprise for the purpose of occupational disease prevention in advance and continuous improvement on the occupational health and safety of employees. Additionally, the area research on this integrated model should be optimized continually in actual situations.
The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a futureoriented human work environment and organiz... more The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a futureoriented human work environment and organizational activity in deep mines that entails a vision of good and safe workplace. Futureoriented technological challenges and mental images required for modern work organization design were appraised. It is argued that an intelligent-deep-mine covering the entire value chain, including environmental issues and with work organization that supports good working and social conditions towards increased human productivity could be designed. With such intelligent system and work organization in place, the mining industry could be seen as a place where cooperation, skills development and gender equality are key components. By this perspective, both the youth and women might view mining activity as an attractive job and the work environment as a safe, and this could go a long way in breaking the unequal gender balance that exists in most mines today.
Attractive mining workplaces are good, safe and healthy workplaces. They are also workplaces that... more Attractive mining workplaces are good, safe and healthy workplaces. They are also workplaces that the workforce of the future wants to work in. As skilled miners and engineers are already scarce, this is important both for today and for the future. But future of mining will also be subject to increased international competition. In attempting to become more competitive, many mining companies turn to rationalisation, looking to both rationalise their production and organisation, as well as to optimise their processes. Work organisation is important in both rationalisation and providing attractive mining work. Therefore, a Lean Production philosophy is investigated for the organisation of future mines. The aim of this paper is to investigate to what extent Lean Production can be used to organise for attractive mining. To do so, it first need to be defined what attractive mining work is and to what degree it can be influenced by work organisation. A short insight into the production co...
2011 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, 2011
This paper looks at the challenges that most organizations, especially in the mining industry, fa... more This paper looks at the challenges that most organizations, especially in the mining industry, face in managing both technological and human activities along their value chains. The aim was to understand how the organization's technological, organizational and human components could be integrated to enhance collaboration and productive efficiency. Guided by an organizational activity theory framework, qualitative data were collected through interviews in a mining firm. The analysis of contradictions showed that production work in the mine is challenged due to the lack of proper coordination in task executions, with workers constrained in their task undertakings and unable to reduce downtime. It was concluded that firms can use the framework as an effective instrument, not only for organizational activity and work environment analyses, but as a tool for learning how to understand and manage the systemic characteristics of the technological, organizational and human components of their organizational activity systems.
The aim of this paper is to discuss how to form work and organisations in the mines of the future... more The aim of this paper is to discuss how to form work and organisations in the mines of the future. The Kiruna underground iron ore mine in the far north of Sweden is used as an example on how technical development affects organisational issues like skills, work identity and gender. Over a period of 50 years one can see a transformation of work from manual underground work to automation and remote control from surface level. What characterised the old underground workface was the close relation between man and the hard rock and with arduous physical work under dangerous conditions. Today, the face miners are located on the seventh level of an office building close to the mine. There is also an emerging, and in many aspects already evident, knowledge transformation - from the old and obsolete physical and tacit knowledge and skills (for example the ability to ‘read the rock') to something new, which can be described as abstract ‘high-tech' knowledge and skills. The modern tech...
Designing Ergonomic, Safe, and Attractive Mining Workplaces, 2018
Industry 4.0 offers new possibilities to combine increased productivity with stimulating workplac... more Industry 4.0 offers new possibilities to combine increased productivity with stimulating workplaces in a good work environment. Used correctly, digitalization can create attractive jobs in safe control room environments, which provide space for the employee's full expertise and creativity. This is true also for the mining industry. But, to succeed, it is important to analyze the development from a worker's perspective. What will happen to their work? What skills will be needed in the mine of tomorrow? We must also consider the risks, such as privacy issues, increased stress, and work-life boundaries. These questions must be understood if we are to create workplaces that can attract a young and diverse workforce to tomorrow's mining industry. In this article, we try to illustrate what the new technology can mean for the individual miners. We formulate the notion of Mining 4.0 (Industry 4.0 in the mining industry), where we try to create an image of how the future might look from a miner's perspective and how mining companies may navigate their way to a future that works for all miners. To illustrate the range of possible outcomes, we formulate two scenarios: one utopian and one dystopic. At the end of our article, we bring forward six recommendations that can be considered a beginning of a road map for the human side of Mining 4.0.
This paper looks at the challenges that most organizations face in the management of their work e... more This paper looks at the challenges that most organizations face in the management of their work environments, with respect to the tools that they can use to effectively capture both the explicit and tacit knowledge held by their employees for subsequent reuse when decisions need to be made. The problemidentification workshop (PIW), which is a participatory tool for enhancing the management of work environment in an organization, was tested in an organization. Participants identified organizational problems, proposed solutions to them, realistically assessed the desirability and possibility of these solutions, and finally recommended action plans to the organization for its short-term, intermediate and longterm design and management of effective work environment towards enhancing work life and productivity in the organization. It was concluded that PIW is a good socio-pedagogic method that can be used as an intelligent participatory intervention tool by managers in organizations in the management of their work environments.
Mineral Economics, 2020
The aim with this article is to discuss how changes in technology at workplaces engender both cha... more The aim with this article is to discuss how changes in technology at workplaces engender both change and restoration of gender constructions within the context of underground mining. The discussions are formed around a constructed case based on material from gender and organizational studies of large-scale industrial mines in different countries, most of them from Sweden. New technologies such as digitalization and automation together with new organizational forms engender changes in mining work, e.g., new types of work tasks, new competence demands, and a move from underground to high-tech control rooms aboveground. One main observation is that the changes challenge the old and recalcitrant blue-collar mining masculinity. On the one hand, the organizational resistance and “lagging” seemed to result in re-gendering and restoration of the male dominance. On the other hand, there were tendencies to adaptation in the workplace cultures, including new ways of forming mining masculinitie...
Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration, 2019
Industry 4.0 offers new possibilities to combine increased productivity with stimulating workplac... more Industry 4.0 offers new possibilities to combine increased productivity with stimulating workplaces in a good work environment. Used correctly, digitalization can create attractive jobs in safe control room environments, which provide space for the employee's full expertise and creativity. This is true also for the mining industry. But, to succeed, it is important to analyze the development from a worker's perspective. What will happen to their work? What skills will be needed in the mine of tomorrow? We must also consider the risks, such as privacy issues, increased stress, and work-life boundaries. These questions must be understood if we are to create workplaces that can attract a young and diverse workforce to tomorrow's mining industry. In this article, we try to illustrate what the new technology can mean for the individual miners. We formulate the notion of Mining 4.0 (Industry 4.0 in the mining industry), where we try to create an image of how the future might look from a miner's perspective and how mining companies may navigate their way to a future that works for all miners. To illustrate the range of possible outcomes, we formulate two scenarios: one utopian and one dystopic. At the end of our article, we bring forward six recommendations that can be considered a beginning of a road map for the human side of Mining 4.0.
2010 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, 2010
This paper looks at the challenges that most organizations face in the management of their work e... more This paper looks at the challenges that most organizations face in the management of their work environments, with respect to the tools that they can use to effectively capture both the explicit and tacit knowledge held by their employees for subsequent reuse when decisions need to be made. The problem-identification workshop, which is a macroergonomic tool for enhancing the management of work environment in an organization, was tested in an organization. Participants identified organizational problems, proposed solutions to them, realistically assessed the desirability and possibility of these solutions, and finally recommended action plans to the organization for its shortterm, intermediate and long-term design and management of effective work environment towards enhancing work life and productivity in the organization. It was concluded that problem-identification workshop is a good socio-pedagogic method that can be used as an intelligent participatory intervention tool by managers in organizations in the management of their work environments.
International Journal of Mining and Mineral Engineering, 2014
Future efficient mining operations will be dependent upon a highly competent and well motivated w... more Future efficient mining operations will be dependent upon a highly competent and well motivated work force, on all levels. The mining companies will have to recruit their personnel from a limited group of talented individuals with high demands and expectations on future work. In order to be successful with this, the companies must offer attractive workplaces that are safe, sound, interesting and can offer challenging work tasks too. In this paper we discuss a number of potential challenges for the future mining industry based on the fact that the majority of the mines are expected to be deeper and located in remote areas. Our intention is to illustrate a possible way forward for the mining industry. We start by describing a vision for such a safe and attractive mine. After that we present a comprehensive and possible research agenda necessary for creating the 'New Attractive Mine'.
Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, 2012
This article seeks to identify performance-enhancing strategies that could be used to improve and... more This article seeks to identify performance-enhancing strategies that could be used to improve and optimise human–technology collaboration in rock drilling ‘activity’ in deep mines. Results from the analysis of miners’ motor actions during rock drilling activity showed that by using procedurally driven strategies, they were able to perform simultaneously two specific tasks that required high levels of concentration and visual
Investments into the production technology of the future require a firm basis in the needs of pro... more Investments into the production technology of the future require a firm basis in the needs of production industry. However, gathering, sorting and ranking cross-industrial future needs remains a steep challenge to technology developers. Gathering feedback from just one or a few case companies can result in a biased set of priorities, since feedback from specific industrial sectors may often be highly influenced by their industry-and productspecific challenges. This paper describes a structured method called “Keyword Mingling” that ...
In order to comprehensively evaluate the employee satisfaction of mine occupational health and sa... more In order to comprehensively evaluate the employee satisfaction of mine occupational health and safety management system, an analytic method based on fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and 2- tuple linguistic model was established. Firstly, based on the establishment of 5 first- grade indicators and 20 second- grade ones, the weight of each indicator is calculated and validated by method of FAHP and root mean square model. Secondly, a path based on the time-ordered Weighted Averaging Operator (T-OWA) model is constructed. Finally, the model is validated by empirical analysis. The results demonstrate that the employee satisfaction of the mine occupational health and safety management system is of the “general” rank. The method including the comprehensive evaluation of employee satisfaction and the quantitative analysis of language evaluation information ensures the authenticity of the language evaluation information.
The good work is a concept established in the mid 1980s. It is a normative theory formulated by t... more The good work is a concept established in the mid 1980s. It is a normative theory formulated by the Swedish Metal Workers’ Union, now called IF Metall. Rather than being very innovative, the concept served more to summarise the values and visions that characterised the trade union movement of those days. In this essay, we will attempt to reconstruct the historic roots of the theory and discuss their relevance in relation to today’s industrial context where Lean Production and similar trends are important elements.
Incl. abstracts, tabl., bibl. Policies of educational expansion are enhanced in most European cou... more Incl. abstracts, tabl., bibl. Policies of educational expansion are enhanced in most European countries. Little attention is, however, paid to skill utilisation at work, learning context and gender-related barriers at work. Oversupply and under-utilisation of skilled labour might create mismatch problems and frustration at the workplace. The aim of this article is to give an overview of Swedish research on the interplay between education, work and learning . The intention is also to bridge over the gap between education research and research with emphasis on learning, development and change at workplaces. Our focus in the paper is on competence supply to and within working life. Attention is also given to overeducation and underlearning and the classical question of balancing supply and demand. The paper illustrates how occupations, professions and job skill requirements change or are stable and also different obstacles and conditions for work place learning.La plupart des pays euro...
Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies, 2013
The purpose of this article is to describe a broader concept of the psychosocial work environment... more The purpose of this article is to describe a broader concept of the psychosocial work environment, a concept that not only is limited to the individual and her immediate environment but also takes into account a broader context that includes production technology as well as work organization and learning. Based on examples from Sweden, we discuss concepts and approaches to psychosocial work environment and how these have changed over time (e.g., how knowledge about the psychosocial work environment is used to understand and discuss health, management, and development—for individuals, groups, and organizations). The knowledge presented is not new; it has been around a long time. The title of the article—One Hundred Years of Inertia—shows some impatience on the part of its authors given that the pace of change in the work environment has not always been great.
2011 Ieee International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, Dec 1, 2011
This paper looks at the challenges that most organizations face in the management of their work e... more This paper looks at the challenges that most organizations face in the management of their work environments, with respect to the tools that they can use to effectively capture both the explicit and tacit knowledge held by their employees for subsequent reuse when decisions need to be made. The problemidentification workshop (PIW), which is a participatory tool for enhancing the management of work environment in an organization, was tested in an organization. Participants identified organizational problems, proposed solutions to them, realistically assessed the desirability and possibility of these solutions, and finally recommended action plans to the organization for its short-term, intermediate and longterm design and management of effective work environment towards enhancing work life and productivity in the organization. It was concluded that PIW is a good socio-pedagogic method that can be used as an intelligent participatory intervention tool by managers in organizations in the management of their work environments.