SO-PC-Pro "Subject-Orientation for People-Centred Production"

European production companies face a variety of challenges arising from the increasingly complex and dynamic environment in which they operate. These challenges have been understood mostly in economic terms based on the time-cost-quality triangle. The main approach to tackling these challenges has been to rationalise production processes through standardised work procedures and automated systems, aiming to reduce cost and increase productivity. However, the predominant focus on functionality and efficiency neglects a critical factor for sustainable organisational success: the human being. While worker satisfaction, motivation and empowerment have been recognised as critical for healthy production organisations, these human factors are often viewed at odds with the economic goals of a company. The goal of SO-PC-Pro is to develop methods and tools for holistic design and management of workplaces in production companies, thereby aligning business goals and human needs. It is based on a view of production companies as complex, socio-technical systems of people, processes and machines that flexibly interact. This view is well captured in the “subject-oriented” methodology for bpm. SO-PC-Pro will apply this methodology for the first time to modelling processes and interactions in the production domain, resulting in a new set of ICT-based technologies that will support people-centred workplaces in three ways. (1) through developing new human-machine interactions that allow for higher degrees of autonomy of workers, (2) through empowering workers to re-design their own workplaces using intuitive design methods and collaborative tools, and (3) through seamlessly integrating production and business processes to enable more adaptable workplaces throughout the whole enterprise. By building on existing models and interface standards, the technologies and case studies developed will demonstrate that people-centred production sites can be created in a not so distant future.