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1. Introduction The Danish Workspace Design (WSD) research program is aimed to develop and trial a potential new concept for ergonomists and occupational health service (OHS) consultants who are to engage in socio-technical design processes. The trial of the workspace design concept included a case involving the design and implementation of a new mixing technology in an industrial plant. The case showed how the WSD concept can contribute to an engineering design process. The WSD team took the role as workspace designer and by participatory workshops and methods achieved an impact on the technology project. The objective of this paper is to discuss how the WSD workshop sessions contributed to the design of a new production line in the mixing plant which was very different from the design engineers’ first outline? The concept of “script” from the actor-network theory seems to be a relevant option to build on in such an analysis. This concept is based on a distinction between the projected user and the real user, and thus that the designer is working with different representations of the user. 2. Methods The test of the Workspace Design (WSD) concept took place in three case companies. In this paper I report an analysis of an industrial manufacturing case in which a company was to implement a new mixing technology in their production line. The WSD team consisted of three researchers from the Technical University of Denmark, two consultants from the Danish Technological Institute, two researchers from the Centre for Design Research, and two OHS consultants from the OHS unit that normally served the industrial manufacturer. This team tried to take the role as workspace designer in relation to the technological change process. In this way a potential new role of the OHS consultant was developed in a mutual learning process. The idea was that the activities planned and completed in this group could be the job of the OHS consultants in their future consultancy tasks for companies. 3. Case: New mixing technology in a production line The company is manufacturing so-called socks for the renovation of piping, especially sewage piping. The key process at the company is the impregnation of socks with chemical mixtures that allow the socks to harden up when installed in piping. The mixing of chemicals into different prescriptions takes place in batch processes located in the mixing plant. The production system implicates much manual handling of barrels and bags by the 4-5 operators. Exposures to vapours and dust are also part of a work environment which is considered to be problematic by all parties involved in the company. The company engaged two external design engineers as consultants to the project. They first worked on a project replacing the current batch technology with new batch technology. During their work, however, they identified a German machine supplier who was able to develop continuous working machinery for the mixing process. It was subsequently decided that they should opt for this solution, and the two design engineers drew up a requirements specification for such machinery. The new production system would be a closed system with automatic inflow of raw materials, thereby improving some aspects of the work environment considerably. At the time of the WSD intervention the new mixing machine was specified and ordered. The design engineers had made two proposals for the layout in the empty production hall where the new machinery was to be installed. Both proposals were based on an optimization of the
piping in the new facility, as the length of the pipes could be a critical factor due to a risk of hardening up of raw materials in the pipes. 4. The WSD intervention The intervention by the WSD team was organized as two collaborative events, each consisting of two workshops. Each workshop had a duration of approximately three hours. The events were design games (Horgen et al., 1999; Johansson et al., 2002; Brandt & Messeter, 2004) aimed at staging the meeting between the production management, two consulting design engineers and three employees of the mixing plant. The design game format was aimed at facilitating a collaborative design process between these actors. In the first event the workshops were focusing on the layout of the new plant in which the new mixing machine was to be installed. In the second event the two workshops were organized as use scenarios, aiming at simulating work processes and ergonomics in the new plant. 4.1 The layout design game The first event was a layout design game which took place in a meeting room in the company. The WSD team had produced game boards and gaming pieces. During the two workshops, the participants were sitting around a game board placed in the middle of the table. The game board was a sketch of the floor plan of the existing mixing plant and the adjacent hall in which the new mixing machine was to be placed. Coloured cardboard pieces represented different artefacts in the plant. A WSD team member was designated as game master, and he instructed the participants that the purpose of the design game was to set up a collaborative design process on the layout of the new mixing plant. He also stressed that the workshop was a sort of a ‘laboratory’ in which participants had the opportunity to explore different layout possibilities. In the first workshop the game board was based on the design engineers’ proposal for layout. This layout was printed to the game board and was not moveable. The coloured gaming pieces represented different issues in relation to workplace design, work tasks, and equipment. They were filled in by the participants during the game. In this way, all the participants could make enquiries to the design engineers’ proposal and this procedure resulted in a number of possible solution proposals to identified problems. At the end of the workshop homework was scheduled to the second workshop. The design engineers should check up on some machine features, the production manager and the OHS coordinator should investigate into regulations on fire and chemicals. Finally, the production manager suggested that the operators should work on a new proposal for layout. The second workshop started with reports from the production manager and the design engineers on their homework. Next, the operators presented their layout proposal step-by-step at a game board with moveable gaming pieces, each representing machines and equipment. During the game they explained their reasons and ideas and a collaborative design process started up. In the end, the game board was representing a layout including many of the operators’ proposals, but during the collaborative design process other things had been changed. In short, the outcome of the layout design game was a proposal for the layout of the new mixing plant which was quite different from the two proposals originally made by the two consulting design engineers. Especially, the work practice experience and ideas brought in by the employees had a profound influence on the new proposal for layout and also included important aspects of ergonomics. The employees were able to highlight things which had not
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