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

该奖项为一个跨学科的研究团队提供支持，以确定在工作场所设计技术时使用的功能性和非功能性机制。这项研究源于研究人员之前在洛厄尔大学车间编程项目(SFPP)中所做的工作。SFPP的目标是创建对机械师友好的软件，克服僵化的劳动分工，即将编程职能分配给工程师，将执行职能分配给机械师。计算机科学家和工程师发现很难与机械师合作，以便使他们能够在使用基于图形的软件时保留或增强决策角色。这些困难意味着创新和灵活性在职场中丧失。本项目通过对比基于技能的原则和世袭或泰勒主义原则，观察机械师、计算机科学家和制造工程师在SFPP中的互动。这项研究将记录会议和工作会议的录像带以供转录，并进行小组会议以分析磁带；检查来自SFPP参与者的文件、人工制品和工作日记；并根据调查结果修订理论框架。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。结果将包括基于技能的技术系统的实践开发和实施，在面向专业、管理和工人社区的期刊上发表文章，演讲活动，在美国和国外从事这些问题的人员之间的交流，以及规划本科科学和工程专业的课程发展。这项提案的主题是伦理和价值观研究的最高优先事项。这些调查人员的资历和过往记录都非常出色。该项目为研究工作场所创新的理论和方法提供了重要的考验。结果将对广泛的个人和团体有用。建议支持这项建议。

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.