Utvärdering av Volvo Lastvagnars monteringsfabrik för hyttillverkning i Umeå
Preprint, 2005
Consumer report (“avnämarrapport” in Swedish) for the company in question which is financed by the company (through the Swedish Metall Workers Union, Metall) and partly also by a research foundation. It is a matter of combined data collection (collections of company data, interviews, questionnaire surveys, video-registration, etc.). In this case, was e.g. two so-called total surveys of all blue-collar employees dealing with assembly work. The problem area (or research question) was focused on a conversion back to assembly line work. Before was an early sort of, less sociotechnically advanced, parallel workgroups practiced) not the far more sociotechnically advanced alternatives to assembly line work that was at hand at the defunct Volvo Automobile AB:s plant located in Uddevalla or the so-called assembly docks located in the Volvo Truck AB:s plant in Tuve (i.e. the sole two real-life assembly system of this very calibre).
This was actually wage owner consultant initiative performed with Logistic and Transportation as the sole base (no private consulting). It was a matter of combined data collection (collections of company data, interviews, questionnaire surveys, video-registration, etc. among other this thereby prospection many of our scientific methods developed during several decades. For example, involving two so-called total surveys of all blue-collar employees dealing with assembly work. The authors and their other colleagues were thus, in many respects, using a wide repertoire of scientific methods.
manufacturing technology
materials feeding techniques
restructuring of information systems
assembly work
sociotechnology
work structuring
parallel product flows
cross and multi-sciences approaches
learning and training
long work cycle times