Beyond Mechanization: Work and Technology in a Postindustrial Age
Human skill and judgment are needed now more than ever to effectively run today's complex computerized production systems. In this thought-provoking study of work, worker, and machine in the postindustrial age, Hirschhorn points out that factories will become places of learning where the worker must be able to diagnose and solve an array of problems generated by error-prone machine systems. With numerous examples he shows that the new technology can fail in unexpected ways and that human judgment has become increasingly important. The new technology also blurs the line between managing and working, requiring workers - craftsmen, machine operators, or engineers - to become generalists who will have to deal with unstructured and open-ended problems. Hirschhorn links theory to the shop floor, examining such issues as the role of unions and the economics of the job shop and describes a new type of factory setting where supervisors are teachers and workers are organized into teams paid according to how much they have learned.
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Beyond Mechanization: Work and Technology in a Postindustrial Age
Human skill and judgment are needed now more than ever to effectively run today's complex computerized production systems. In this thought-provoking study of work, worker, and machine in the postindustrial age, Hirschhorn points out that factories will become places of learning where the worker must be able to diagnose and solve an array of problems generated by error-prone machine systems. With numerous examples he shows that the new technology can fail in unexpected ways and that human judgment has become increasingly important. The new technology also blurs the line between managing and working, requiring workers - craftsmen, machine operators, or engineers - to become generalists who will have to deal with unstructured and open-ended problems. Hirschhorn links theory to the shop floor, examining such issues as the role of unions and the economics of the job shop and describes a new type of factory setting where supervisors are teachers and workers are organized into teams paid according to how much they have learned.
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Beyond Mechanization: Work and Technology in a Postindustrial Age

Beyond Mechanization: Work and Technology in a Postindustrial Age

by Larry Hirschhorn
Beyond Mechanization: Work and Technology in a Postindustrial Age

Beyond Mechanization: Work and Technology in a Postindustrial Age

by Larry Hirschhorn

Paperback(Revised ed.)

$30.00 
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Overview

Human skill and judgment are needed now more than ever to effectively run today's complex computerized production systems. In this thought-provoking study of work, worker, and machine in the postindustrial age, Hirschhorn points out that factories will become places of learning where the worker must be able to diagnose and solve an array of problems generated by error-prone machine systems. With numerous examples he shows that the new technology can fail in unexpected ways and that human judgment has become increasingly important. The new technology also blurs the line between managing and working, requiring workers - craftsmen, machine operators, or engineers - to become generalists who will have to deal with unstructured and open-ended problems. Hirschhorn links theory to the shop floor, examining such issues as the role of unions and the economics of the job shop and describes a new type of factory setting where supervisors are teachers and workers are organized into teams paid according to how much they have learned.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780262580816
Publisher: MIT Press
Publication date: 02/07/1986
Series: The MIT Press
Edition description: Revised ed.
Pages: 200
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Larry Hirschhorn is principal and senior research manager at the Wharton Center for Applied Research.
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