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

该奖项为跨学科研究团队提供支持，以确定工作场所设计技术中使用的功能和非功能机制。这项研究是从研究人员在洛厄尔大学的车间规划项目（SFPP）中的先前工作发展而来的。SFPP的目标是创建对机械师友好的软件，以克服将编程功能分配给工程师而将执行功能分配给机械师的严格分工。计算机科学家和工程师发现很难与机械师合作，以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。这些困难意味着工作场所失去了创新和灵活性。该项目通过对SFPP中机械师、计算机科学家和制造工程师的相互作用的观察，将基于技能的原则与等级或泰勒原则进行对比。该研究将把会议和工作会议记录在录像带上以便抄写，并举行小组会议以便分析录像带；检查SFPP参与者的文件、工件和工作日志；并根据研究结果对理论框架进行修正。SFPP生成的软件本身可以分析它所揭示的假设和价值。结果将包括动手开发和实施以技能为基础的技术系统，在专业、管理和工人社区的期刊上发表文章，参加演讲，在美国和国外从事这些问题的人员之间进行交流，以及规划本科科学和工程课程的发展。本提案的主题是伦理与价值研究的最高优先事项。这些调查人员的资质和工作记录都非常出色。该项目为研究工作场所创新的理论和方法提供了重要的测试。结果将对广泛的个人和团体有用。建议支持该提案。

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.