Towards human-profile based operations in advanced factory governance systems: contemporary challenges for socio-technical systems design?

This paper is about the requirements for an advanced factory governance system. Based on Rudd’s (2004) variant of Ostrom’s IAD framework five capital assets are distinguished: Natural, artificial, human, social, and financial. A factory’s operations involve and affect these five capital assets. To scope worker activities with respect to objectives that exist for these capital assets, this paper applies insights from Cochran et al. (2001) Manufacturing System Design Decomposition. It is argued that in an advanced factory governance system the workers do also engage in governance and management 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.