New Shop Floor Control Approaches for Virtual Enterprises

The virtual enterprise paradigm seems a fit response to face market instability and the volatile nature of business opportunities increasing enterprise’s interest in similar forms of networked organisations. The dynamic environment of a virtual enterprise requires that partners in the consortium own reconfigurable shop floors. This paper presents new approaches to shop floor control that meet the requirements of the new industrial paradigms and argues on work re-organization at shop floor level.

Futures of automobile industry and challenges on sustainable development and mobility

Portugal had only very few foresight exercises on the automobile sector, and the most recent one was a survey held in a project on work organisation systems in the automobile industry, its recent historical paths and the special strategies of location of companies (the WorTiS project). This involved several teams with different disciplinary backgrounds and from two Portuguese universities. The provisional main results of the first round of a Delphi survey held in Portugal on the automotive sector were already published, but a further analysis was not yet done. This foresight survey was done under the WorTiS project, developed in 2004 by IET – Research Centre on Enterprise and Work Innovation (at FCT-UNL), and financed by the Portuguese Ministry of Science and Technology. Some of this experience on foresight analysis is also been transferred to other projects, namely the WORKS project on work organisation restructuring in the knowledge society that received the support from EC and still is running. The majority of experts considered having an average of less knowledge in almost all the scenario topics presented. This means that information on the automotive industry is not spread enough among academics or experts in related fields (regional scientists, innovation economists, engineers, sociologists). Some have a good knowledge but in very specialised fields. Others have expertise on foresight, or macroeconomics, or management sciences, but feel insecure on issues related with futures of automobile sector. Nevertheless, we considered specially the topics where the experts considered themselves to have some knowledge. There were no “irrelevant” topics considered as such by the expert panel. There are also no topics that are not considered a need for co-operation. The lack of technological infrastructures was not considered as a hindered factor for the accomplishment of any scenario. The experts’ panel considered no other international competence besides US, Japan or Germany in these topics. Special focus will be made in this paper on the topic 2. Public policy and automobile industries, and more specifically on the technological and/or research policies issues, where one can specify the automobile’s role in transport policies with further implications like environment, safety, energy, mobility.

Noise management at work

Every single day millions of European workers are exposed to noise at work. One in five of European’s workers have to raise his voice to be heard for at least half of the time that there are at work and 7% suffer from work-related hearing impairment. In Europe noise-induced hearing loss is the most common reported occupational disease. This paper deals with issues related with noise management at work, especially regarding the compliance with the new noise European Directive, (2003/10/EC).

Renewable Power Sources

Of all of the sources of renewable energies available one can argue that the most abundant and accessible are solar power, radiation, and the energy of the tides (70 % of the earth surface is covered by water). The tidal wave energy hasn’t seen a widespread distribution yet, mainly due to the lack of interest of the governments, most of the coastal areas of the world are exclusive responsibility of the governments, thus not easily open for private venture. Considering solar power, there exist two main fields of application, land based systems and space based systems. The former systems are still in a very embryonic phase, with Japan being the lead researcher in the field, with an experimental satellite-power station to be launched before 2010. Land based systems, on the other hand, are well studied, with major research and application programs in all known forms of solar power production. Given a minimum value of incident radiation, and applying the appropriate system, (i.e. power plant type), for any given area the solar power becomes an income-producing industry.

Efficient middleware for database replication

Dissertação de Mestrado em Engenharia Informática

Editorial Note

FCT-MCTES

Work organisation and restructuring in the knowledge society

It is generally agreed that major changes in work are taking place in the organisation of work as corporate structures are transformed in the context of economic globalisation and rapid technological change. But how can these changes be understood? And what are the impacts on social institutions and on workers and their families? The WORKS project brought together 17 research institutes in 13 European countries to investigate these important issues through a comprehensive four year research programme.

Job quality in Europe: the North-South divide

This paper examines the job quality in Europe. It is based on the results of the Fourth European Foundation Survey on working conditions covering different dimensions including work organisation, job content, autonomy at work, aspects of worker dignity, working time and work-life balance, working conditions and safety in the workplace. The results point to the existence of great diversity in the job quality across Europe and the north-south divide. The job quality differences are related to the variety of social and institutional contexts. The countries of Southern Europe, with their social and institutional contexts falling within the scope of the Mediterranean model, generally present indicators below the European average contrasting Nordic countries having the best job quality indicators.

Synopsis of global scenario and forecasting surveys scenarios in risk habitat megacity (RHM)

The main objective of the paper is to provide a synopsis of global scenario and forecasting surveys. First, the paper will give an overview on existing global scenario and forecasting surveys and their specific scenario philosophies and storylines. Second, the major driving forces that shape and characterise the different scenarios will be identified. The scenario analysis has been provided for the research project Risk Habitat Megacity (HRM) that aims at developing strategies for sustainable development in megacities and urban agglomerations. The analysis of international scenario surveys is an essential component within RHM. The scenario analysis will be the basis and source for the development of own RHM-framework scenarios and for defining specific driving forces of change.

Futures of work and skills: some foresight exercises in Europe and USA

The Knowledge-based society brought a new way of living and working. The increasing decline of work in primary sector and traditional industries, related with the significant increase of employment in the service sector and in the knowledge work, changed the way companies and individuals establish their relations, the way work and life is organised. These changes are usual and fast and so the feeling of insecurity and unpredictability become more and more sharp. In this context, foresight exercises are necessary tools helping in the identification of the key variables and main trends of evolution. This report will present some foresight studies about work and skills in Europe and USA, in order to contribute to think about possible evolutions and trends.

Assessing scenarios on the future of work

In this paper will be discussed different types of scenarios and the aims for using scenarios. Normaly they are being used by organisations due to the need to anticipate processes, to support policy-making and to understand the complexities of relations. Such organisations can be private companies, R&D organisations and networks of organisations, or even by some public administration institutions. Some cases will be discussed as the methods for ongoing scenario-building process (Shell Internacional). Scenarios should anticipate possible relations among social actors as in the Triple Helix Model, and is possible to develop strategic intelligence in the innovation process that would enable the construction of scenarios. Such processes can be assessed. The focus will be made in relation to the steps chosen for the WORKS scenarios. In this case is there a model of work changes that can be used for foresight? Differences according to sectors were found, as well on other dimensions. Problems of assessment are analysed with specific application to the scenario construction methods.

Future gender relations in global restructuring processes case study evidence from knowledge-intensive, manufacturing and service occupations

Global restructuring processes have not only strong implications for European working and living realities, but also have specific outcomes with regard to gender relations. The following contribution analyses in which way global restructuring shapes current gender relations in order to identify important trends and developments for future gender (in)equalities at the workplace. On the basis of a large qualitative study on global restructuring and impacts on different occupational groups it argues that occupational belonging in line with skill and qualification levels are crucial factors to assess the further development of gender relations at work. Whereas global restructuring in knowledge-based occupations may provide new opportunities for female employees, current restructuring is going to deteriorate female labour participation in service occupations. In contrast, manufacturing occupations can be characterised by persistent gender relations, which do not change in spite of major restructuring processes at the work place. Taking the institutional perspective into account, it seems to be crucial to integrate the occupational perspective in order to apply adequate policy regulations to prevent the reinforcement of gender related working patterns in the near future.

A high level e-maintenance architecture to support on-site teams

Emergent architectures and paradigms targeting reconfigurable manufacturing systems increasingly rely on intelligent modules to maximize the robustness and responsiveness of modern installations. Although intelligent behaviour significantly minimizes the occurrence of faults and breakdowns it does not exclude them nor can prevent equipment’s normal wear. Adequate maintenance is fundamental to extend equipments’ life cycle. It is of major importance the ability of each intelligent device to take an active role in maintenance support. Further this paradigm shift towards “embedded intelligence”, supported by cross platform technologies, induces relevant organizational and functional changes on local maintenance teams. On the one hand, the possibility of outsourcing maintenance activities, with the warranty of a timely response, through the use of pervasive networking technologies and, on the other hand, the optimization of local maintenance staff are some examples of how IT is changing the scenario in maintenance. The concept of e-maintenance is, in this context, emerging as a new discipline with defined socio-economic challenges. This paper proposes a high level maintenance architecture supporting maintenance teams’ management and offering contextualized operational support. All the functionalities hosted by the architecture are offered to the remaining system as network services. Any intelligent module, implementing the services’ interface, can report diagnostic, prognostic and maintenance recommendations that enable the core of the platform to decide on the best course of action.

Characterization of cleaners accidents in the Portuguese service sector

This paper characterizes work accidents at Portuguese industrial cleaning companies, operating in the service sector, through the application of ESAW methodology. Data was codified based on the analysis of 748 accident claims to insurance companies (number of days lost 1 working day) in 3 large industrial cleaning companies for the period 2001-2003. Slipping and falling in the same level was the main deviation from the normal working process in the moment of the accident (in 25% of the accidents); uncoordinated movements was the second cause of accidents (14%); falls of persons to a lower level was the third cause of accidents (~10%), including falls from stairs (~7%) and falls from ladders and mobile ladders (~2%); globally, body movement under or with physical stress, including lifting, carrying, putting down, bending down, twisting, turning, trading badly, twisting leg or ankle and slipping without falling, were the cause in 17% of the accidents. Lower limbs were injured in ~25% of the accidents, hand and fingers in ~14%, the eye in ~4% and the back in ~9% of the accidents. An incidence rate of 3,580 accidents/100,000 employees was found to the sector (2003 data).