Engineering Values as a Barrier to the Effective Use of Skilled Workers

工程价值观是有效利用技术工人的障碍

• 批准号: 9112265
• 负责人: Sarah Kuhn
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Massachusetts Lowell Research Foundation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1991
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1991-09-01 至 1994-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9112265&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Engineering; Values; Barrier; Effective; Use

This award provides support to an interdisciplinary team of researchers to identify functional and disfunctional mechanisms in use in designing technologies for the workplace. The study evolves from the investigators' prior work in the Shop Floor Programming Project (SFPP) at the University of Lowell. The SFPP's goal was to create machinist-friendly software, to overcome rigid divisions of labor that assign programming functions to engineers and executing functions to machinists. Computer scientists and engineers have found it difficult to work with machinists so as to enable them to retain or augment a decision making role in using graphics-based software. These difficulties mean that innovation and flexibility are lost in the workplace. This project proceeds by contrasting skill-based with heirarchical or Taylorist principles, in the observation of the interactions of machinists and computer scientists and manufacturing engineers in the SFPP. The study will record meetings and working sessions on videotape for transcription and conduct group sessions for analysis of the tapes; examine documents, artifacts, and working journals from SFPP participants; and revise the theoretical framework based on findings. The software generated by the SFPP can itself be analyzed for what it reveals about assumptions and values. Results will include hands-on development and implementation of skill-based technological systems, publications in periodicals that reach professional, managerial, and worker communities, speaking engagements, exchanges among people working on these issues in the U.S. and abroad, and planning for curriculum development in undergraduate science and engineering. The topic of this proposal is of highest priority for Ethics and Values Studies. The qualifications and track record of these investigators are excellent. The project provides an important test for theories and methodologies to study innovation in the workplace. Results will be useful for a wide range of individuals and groups. The proposal is recommended for support.

该奖项为跨学科研究团队提供支持，以确定在工作场所设计技术中使用的功能和功能障碍机制。这项研究是从洛厄尔大学车间编程项目（SFPP）的研究人员先前的工作发展而来的。SFPP的目标是创建机械师友好的软件，以克服将编程功能分配给工程师并将执行功能分配给机械师的严格劳动分工。计算机科学家和工程师发现很难与机械师一起工作，以便使他们能够在使用基于图形的软件时保留或增加决策角色。这些困难意味着工作场所丧失了创新和灵活性。该项目通过对比基于技能与等级制或泰勒主义原则，观察SFPP中机械师、计算机科学家和制造工程师的互动来进行。这项研究将记录会议和工作会议的录像带转录和进行小组会议的磁带分析;检查文件，文物，和SFPP参与者的工作日志;并根据调查结果修改理论框架。由SFPP生成的软件本身可以被分析，以了解它所揭示的假设和价值。结果将包括动手开发和实施基于技能的技术系统，在期刊上发表文章，达到专业，管理和工人社区，演讲活动，在美国和国外从事这些问题的人之间的交流，以及本科科学和工程课程开发的规划。本提案的主题是伦理和价值观研究的最高优先级。这些调查员的资格和往绩都很出色。该项目为研究工作场所创新的理论和方法提供了重要的测试。结果将对广泛的个人和团体有用。建议支持该提案。