Improving worker productivity in advanced manufacturing environments

As information technology becomes more pervasive, the role of workers in manufacturing and commercial enterprises is changing rapidly from direct interaction with products and customers to supervisory control of increasingly complex systems. However, lean manufacturing has tended to focus mainly on physical production processes and is less effective when dealing with information flows and cognitive work. This paper describes research into work analysis methods that form the basis for effective productivity improvement guides for knowledge workers. Through an action research approach, it focuses on complex problem solving in a highly automated manufacturing environment. We present four productivity improvement principles accompanied by practical methods that improve the visibility and analysis of cognitive work, communication patterns and information flows.