A Socio-Technical Systems

A Socio-Technical Systems

  • Submitted By: ohsycu
  • Date Submitted: 06/04/2011 8:52 AM
  • Category: Business
  • Words: 807
  • Page: 4
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Management Information Systems
Ohsy Cahyaningrum Ulfah
09/288640/EK/17683

Article:
A Socio-Technical Systems
In the early 1950's Eric Trist and the Tavistock Institute studied the English coal mining industry where mechanization had actually decreased worker productivity. Trist proposed that manufacturing (and many other) systems have both technical and human/social aspects that are tightly bound and interconnected. Moreover, it is the interconnections more than individual elements that determine system performance.The technical system includes machinery, processes, procedures and a physical arrangement. We usually think of a factory in terms of its technical system.The social system includes people and their habitual attitudes, values, behavioral styles and relationships. It includes the reward system. It is the formal power structure as depicted on organization charts and the informal power structure deriving from knowledge and personal influence. 
Mechanization In The English Coal Mines
In the coalmines, mechanization had broken up tightly knit teams that had previously performed the entire extraction process from blasting to hauling to sorting. 
* With mechanization, different people performed the various steps of extraction on different shifts and this caused coordination problems. 
* The equipment was so loud people could not communicate and this inhibited teamwork and team development. 
* The pay system went from a group incentive system to an hourly wage system and this destroyed monetary motivation. 
* People felt alone, isolated, and unappreciated deep in the earth. This destroyed the powerful intrinsic motivators of pride, satisfaction and belonging. 
The overall result for the English mining industry was decreased productivity and labor strife.

Joint optimization is the goal of socio-Technical design. For example, a manufacturing workcell that requires high teamwork will not produce in an environment of suspicion and...

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