Enhancing social collaboration between humans and technology in the digitization of deep mining activity

• This paper discuses the use of organizational activity theory to address concerns on the best way to digitized human work that can lead to the creation of a harmony between the human, technical and the social system, towards increased productivity in the deep mine industry. The aim is to develop the requisite knowledge on the use of social networking technologies (new communication models) to design highly digitised work activity in which open collaboration can be enhanced between the human and the technological functions of the work that will make cross value chain optimisation a reality. Data is collected using observation and video-recording of miners’ activities, as well as recorded interviews techniques. The systemic-structural activity theory (Bedny and Karwowski, 2007), which focus on both the sociocultural approach to activity study and the individual-psychological approaches to activity study, which are basic to the study of human work is used. The main unit of analysis is the mine production activity. The sub-unit of analysis is carried out at two levels. These are the “object oriented” activity level, and the “subject-oriented” activity level. The object-oriented activity is analyzed from the perspectives of individual miners using technological tools (highly mechanized equipments) in breaking the rocks (material objects). The subject-oriented activity is also analyzed from the perspectives of the individual miner and his subjective interaction with the communication models and the technological tools as social objects. It is argued that since organizations possess technologies for accomplishing work, organizational activity then emphasizes a work system design in which technology affects social relations in organizations by structuring collaborative processes which are important components of an organization. It is then concluded that the systemic-structural activity theory can help understand how to optimize a work system’s design, such as the digitized mine activity, in terms of its sociotechnical system characteristics.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Produktionsteknik, arbetsvetenskap och ergonomi (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Industrial Work Environment

Industriell produktionsmiljö

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)