The present communication analyses the relationships between work organisation and quality systems. The analysis is based on results from a study funded by the "Specific Programme for the Development of Portuguese Industry" (PEDIP). The main issues which have been currently associated with work organisation and quality control in the Portuguese industry are characterized. Critical features related to the implementation of quality systems and new methods of work organisation for industrial development are also discussed. A few recommendations are given in order to promote appropriate methods of work organisation for quality improvement within Portuguese industry.

In this paper it is analysed the relationships between work organisation and quality systems in firms that uses some forms of advanced automation. Are characterised the existing quality control structures in the Portuguese industry, and the main factors that hidden or fosters the development of sociotechnical methods of quality control organisation strategies. Are analysed some industrial cases that explains more clearly the critical issues of the implementation of quality systems and work organisation systems. A few recommendations are given about the possibilities for the development of new forms of work organisation and the quality systems associated to automated manufacturing systems.

At the beginning of the 21st century there are new expectations and challenges towards Technology Assessment (TA). Among these there is a new awareness on TA issues in education, in particular at universities. While TA was mainly an activity at extra-universitarian research institutions for a long time now there are new developments and initiative towards integrating TA issues in university courses. We will first give an insight into the international development. Secondly we will focus on the “TA and education” landscape in Germany and Portugal in more detail, followed by a description of new and emerging forms of cooperation between Portugal and Germany in this field which might serve as a model or an example for further cooperation between other partners.

Currently distributed business process (re) design (resulting in components of business networks) basically relies on technical criteria. And that are the main purposes of most research projects supported by EC. Through the process of building a European Research Area, this means a strong influence in the national research programmes. However it is generally accepted that it should also take into account social criteria and aspects such as the quality of working life, or participation in decision processes. Those were some of the objectives of projects in de 80s decade, and framed some of the main concepts and scientific approaches to work organisation. The democratic participation of network and organisations members in the design process is a critical success factor. This is not accepted by everyone, but is based in sufficient case studies. Nevertheless, in order to achieve an optimization that can satisfying the requirements of agility of a network of enterprises, more complex design methods must be developed. Thus, the support to the collaborative design of distributed work in a network of enterprises, through a concurrent approaching business processes, work organisation and task content is a key factor to achieve such purposes. Increasing needs in terms of amounts of information, agility, and support for collaboration without time and space constrains, imposes the use of a computer-based model.

The summer school “Renewable Energy Systems: Role and Use of Parliamentary Technology Assessment” was the first European Summer School with a pure focus on technology assessment. The aim of the three-day long summer school of the European project Parliaments and Civil Society in Technology Assessment (PACITA) was to create awareness of the potential of technology groups in Europe. Therefore, the summer school involved keynotes, practical exercises, mutual reflection, cutting edge training and networking to deal with the theme of renewable energy systems out of the perspective of Technology Assessment (TA), to meet transition objectives or to critically assess energy technologies.

In this working paper are present the main provisional results of the first round of a Delphi survey held in Portugal on the automotive sector. It was done under the WorTiS project, developed by IET – Research Centre on Enterprise and Work Innovation, and financed by the Portuguese Ministry of Science and Technology. The majority of experts consider to have an average of less knowledge in almost all the scenario topics presented. Nevertheless, we considered specially the topics where the experts considered themselves to have some knowledge. There were no “irrelevant” topics considered as such by the expert panel. There are also no topics that is not considered a need for co-operation (that happens in jus tone case). The lack of technological infra-structrures was not considered as an hindered factor for the accomplishement of any scenario. The experts panel considered no other international competence besides US, Japan or Germany in these topics. Although the members of the expert panel were not as many as needed, These situations will be taken into consideration for a second round of the Delphi survey

The design of work organisation systems with automated equipment is facing new challenges and the emergence of new concepts. The social aspects that are related with new concepts on the complex work environments (CWE) are becoming more relevant for that design. The work with autonomous systems implies options in the design of workplaces. Especially that happens in such complex environments. The concepts of “agents”, “co-working” or “human-centred technical systems” reveal new dimensions related to human-computer interaction (HCI). With an increase in the number and complexity of those human-technology interfaces, the capacities of human intervention can become limited, originating further problems. The case of robotics is used to exemplify the issues related with automation in working environments and the emergence of new HCI approaches that would include social implications. We conclude that studies on technology assessment of industrial robotics and autonomous agents on manufacturing environment should also focus on the human involvement strategies in organisations. A needed participatory strategy implies a new approach to workplaces design. This means that the research focus must be on the relation between technology and social dimensions not as separate entities, but integrated in the design of an interaction system.

The present article posits constructive technology assessment as the dominant perspective of societal embedding practices in the technical development process by the high-speed train manufacturing industry, resulting from a research study conducted in 2011 (Moretto 2011). The article covers the main elements of the study, being the high-speed train manufacturing industry’s strategic intelligence, technology pattern, knowledge exchange, technology trajectories; and finally presents the arguments justifying constructive technology assessment as the dominant approach.

This study was produced for the “Study of Instruments and Tools to anticipate the effects of industrial change on employment, trades and vocational qualifications” and for DG V (Employment) of the European Commission in the late 1994. It started when the previous Portuguese government was still ruling, the main policies were defined, and the available instruments were not used in a minimum extend. The new Government, issued from the 1995 elections, proposed “employment” as a major objective with horizontal responsibility. That’s also why there is now a Ministry for Qualifications and Employment, and another one for Solidarity and Social Affairs, not one for Employment and Social Affairs as the previous Government had. But more than that, this objective is considered to need a coordinated and consistent action that involves external affairs, industrial and regional policies, and the policies on education, training and employment, among others. The promotion of the “quality of employment” is being recently done at the working conditions, remuneration, social protection, occupational promotion levels, and the equality of opportunities towards employment and vocational training levels, and finally, the levels of qualification of human resources for a better labour market, education policy and training policy developments. In Portugal, the influence of the industrial change is produced in a top-down way; with (in some cases) an ex post analysis process to formulated training needs. This means that the industrial change impact is produced (normally, unexpectedly), and afterwards the responsible at the company level tries to know which training needs should be formulated in order those effects could be the smoother possible. The training needs at the company level is not based on anticipatory studies, neither is done any long term forecast on qualification, or even employment level.

The main objective of the paper is to provide a synopsis of global scenario and forecasting surveys. First, the paper will give an overview on existing global scenario and forecasting surveys and their specific scenario philosophies and storylines. Second, the major driving forces that shape and characterise the different scenarios will be identified. The scenario analysis has been provided for the research project Risk Habitat Megacity (HRM) that aims at developing strategies for sustainable development in megacities and urban agglomerations. The analysis of international scenario surveys is an essential component within RHM. The scenario analysis will be the basis and source for the development of own RHM-framework scenarios and for defining specific driving forces of change.

The project started in 2009 with the support of DAAD in Germany and CRUP in Portugal under the “Collaborative German-Portuguese University Actions” programme. One central goal is the further development of a theory of technology assessment applied to robotics and autonomous systems in general that reflects in its methodology the changing conditions of knowledge production in modern societies and the emergence of new robotic technologies and of associated disruptive changes. Relevant topics here are handling broadened future horizons and new clusters of science and technology (medicine, engineering, interfaces, industrial automation, micro-devices, security and safety), as well as new governance structures in policy decision making concerning research and development (R&D).

This is the second interim report of the research project "Information Society, Work and the Generation of New Forms of Social Exclusion" (SOWING). It is based on a firm survey conducted in the eight regions participating in the research project — Flanders (Belgium), Lazio (Italy), Niederösterreich (Austria), Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, the Stuttgart area (Germany), the Tampere region (Finland) and the West London area (U.K.). The aim of this report is to present a broad overview of the collected data. In general, only simple statistical methods have been applied. The report focuses on a regional comparison; however, the data have also been analysed by firm size, measured by quantity of staff, and industrial sector. It should be seen as a first step in the data analysis; it may also give some hints for a more strategic analysis of the survey data.

The relation between work organisation and technological practices in auto industry is analysed in this article. The concept of “technological practice” in this sector is used to describe the specific ways of embedding information and communication technology applications into the organizational forms and cultural patterns. This concept was developed with the Sowing project (TSER, DG XII) and that approach included either the shop floor co-operation up to the regionally based networks of companies and supporting institutions. The authors studied different sectors in the automotive firms of different European countries (Germany, Belgium and Portugal): shopfloor and production lines, design and management and the local inter-relationships. It was underlined some evidencies of the different alternatives in terms of technological practices for the same sector. Much of the litterature try to disseminate an idea of a single (and optimum) organisational model for the same type of product. And here, even with the same type of technology, and of product (medium-high range), one can find different models, different cultures, different ways of organising the industrial structure (firms, regional institutions, R&D centres) in the same sector (auto industry).

The relation between work organisation and technological practices in auto industry is analysed in this article. The concept of “technological practice” in this sector is used to describe the specific ways of embedding information and communication technology applications into the organizational forms and cultural patterns. This concept was developed with the Sowing project (TSER, DG XII) and that approach included either the shop floor co-operation up to the regionally based networks of companies and supporting institutions. The authors studied different sectors in the automotive firms of different European countries (Germany, Belgium and Portugal): shopfloor and production lines, design and management and the local inter-relationships. It was underlined some evidencies of the different alternatives in terms of technological practices for the same sector. Much of the litterature try to disseminate an idea of a single (and optimum) organisational model for the same type of product. And here, even with the same type of technology, and of product (medium-high range), one can find different models, different cultures, different ways of organising the industrial structure (firms, regional institutions, R&D centres) in the same sector (auto industry).

“Theory and Practice” of TA, which is referred to in the title of this journal “TATuP”, is usually addressed as a question of TA research. But science is more than research: the field of teaching requires just as much attention, both practically and theoretically. Therefore, a mere collection of individual teaching experiences and best practice examples does not provide a strong enough basis to discuss questions of TA teaching, these must also be embedded in a theoretical context and discussed in their relation to research. In this special issue, we aim to contribute to a combination of theoretical and practical approaches to the relation of TA and “Bildung”.

WThis report aims to be the gathering of the main ideas that culminated in the presentation at the 1st Winter School of the PhD Programme on Technology Assessment (FCT-UNL) in December 2010. It is a guideline for future work development regarding Technology Assessment in Radiology, particularly having Magnetic Resonance Imaging, as an example. Therefore, as a background, it is necessary to understand what is “Technology Assessment”, how it developed and what it Europe’s interest in this area. Doing a transposition of this subject to health area, it is also important to understand the particularities of Health Technology Assessment. Portugal framework on this subject will also be addressed. As so, the Portuguese National Health System is characterized and the decision-making stakeholders identified, has well as the competences for the decision-making process in general. More generally, the different stakeholders perception involved in decision making, the mapping skills on technology assessment and decision making, the identification of indicators present in this decision making in Radiology, particularly in Magnetic Resonance area, are subjects to be addressed. To accomplish this, a research methodology was outlined, so that six research questions could be answered and five hypotheses could be accepted or refuted, in the future. With this research methodology, the Portuguese state of the art Magnetic Resonance equipment existence will be studied, using a survey as a resource. In the future, a mapping stakeholder technique will be used to identify the decision making key stakeholders and a survey will be applied to map theirs skills and competences in the process, where a pre-test was already applied.

The paper aims to understand the degree of transition towards e-mobility. The assumption is that the degree of convergence between actors of each system (batteries, vehicles, grid, policies, business models and consumers) is an indicator of changes in the present socio-technical regime. After an introduction to the socio-technical transition towards e-mobility, the paper presents and discusses three technology assessment approaches to several projects related to technology, society and politics. There are several thematic crossovers between all projects presented leading to a synergetic technology assessment. This output results from the overlapping areas between the cases and can be used to first assess the extent of changes in the present socio-technical regime, as well as to extract standards and regulations, acceptance/risk analyses and behaviour changes that could be significant in the context of a transition towards electric mobility.

1st ISA Forum report

This paper is based on a study about the Setúbal region, included in the internacional project “The Future of Industry in Europe” for the programme FAST-MONITOR of the European Community (1992-94). There were some information on the project VW/Ford for this region and those that are connected with research networks on industrial sectors (specially, on the automobile industry), and the network on the spatial and regional factors of regional development. Those studies allowed the scenario development on evolution trends of European industry and, specifically, on the automobile sector, and on the Setúbal region that was studied by the Portuguese team.

The clothing sector in several countries is still seen, in many aspects as a traditional sector with some average characteristics, nevertheless is a very important sector in terms of labour market. Globalization and de-localization are having a strong impact in the organisation of work and in occupational careers. Very few companies are able to keep a position in the market without changes in organisation of work and workers, founding different ways to face this reality according to size, capital and position. We could find two main paths: one where companies outsource production to another territory, close and/or dismissal the workers; other path, where companies up skilled their capacities. This paper will present some results from the European project WORKS – Work organisation and restructuring in the knowledge society (6th Framework Programme), focusing the Portuguese case studies in several clothing companies in a comparative analysis with some other European countries.

Most of the discussion and controversy on organisation of work concepts has been referenced to the manufacturing industry along the 20th century: it started with the concept of “scientific management” from Taylor, and continued with the new ideas on the importance of human factors as Mayo pointed out in the 1930s. Immediately after the 2nd World War Friedmann studied the human problems related to new manufacturing technologies and automation. And the late 1950 and 1960s were decades of strong debate on the socio-technics with the research at Tavistock Institute of London and the emergence of national programmes on new forms of work organisation. At the end of the last century the concept of collaborative work was developed together with the definition(s) of information systems and organisational design. However, the interest came from other production activities, like the services. This article analyses the approaches developed on these debates on the collaborative work and information system and its application to the manufacturing industry.

The relationship between the changes of the global economy and individual working conditions formed the background of the first WORKS conference “The transformation of work in a global knowledge economy: towards a conceptual framework”, held in Chania, Greece from 21st – 22nd September, 2006 and attended by around 50 European researchers. Experts from academia and trade unions from all over the world were invited to give insights into their field of research, contributing to one of the main topics of the conference: (i) globalisation and organisational restructuring, (ii) workers’ organisation, the quality of working life and the gender dimension and (iii) global experiences and recommendations.

This article outlines the initial draft of a PhD project which investigates refurbishment or rehabilitation projects in two German cities. The study focuses on obstacles, restraints and deficits as well as factors of success, which can be identified during the execution of the refurbishments. Moreover the study examines the process of the refurbishment itself, the general conditions under which the refurbishments are being executed as well as the implementation of sustainability criteria. First the article gives a short summary of the theoretical considerations of the study. In this respect it shortly outlines the global conditions of urban development and conducting challenges for cities in the 21st century, guiding principles of a sustainable urban development as well as goals of sustainable refurbishments. Finally the article shortly describes the case studies and presents the initial results of the empirical work.

The clothing sector in Portugal is still seen, in many aspects as a traditional sector with some average characteristics, such as: low level of qualifications, less flexible labour legislation and stronger unionisation, very low salaries and low capability of investment in innovation and new technology. Is, nevertheless, a very important sector in terms of labour market, with increased weight in the exporting structure. Globalisation and delocalisation are having a strong impact in the organisation of work and in occupational careers in the sector. With the pressure of global competitiveness in what concerns time and prices, very few companies are able to keep a position in the market without changes in organisation of work and workers. And those that can perform good responses to such challenges are achieving a better economical stability. The companies have found different ways to face this reality according to size, capital and position. We could find two main paths: one where companies outsource a part or the entire production to another territory (for example, several manufacturing tasks), close and/or dismissal the workers. Other path, where companies up skilled their capacities investing, for example, in design, workers training, conception and introduction of new or original products. This paper will present some results from the European project WORKS – Work organisation and restructuring in the knowledge society (6th Framework Programme), focusing the Portuguese case studies in several clothing companies in what concern implications of global context for the companies in general and for the workers in particular, in a comparative analysis with some other European countries.

The clothing sector in Portugal is still seen, in many aspects as a traditional sector with some average characteristics, such as: low level of qualifications, less flexible labour legislation and stronger unionisation, very low salaries and low capability of investment in innovation and new technology. Is, nevertheless, a very important sector in terms of labour market, with increased weight in the exporting structure. Globalisation and delocalisation are having a strong impact in the organisation of work and in occupational careers in the sector. With the pressure of global competitiveness in what concerns time and prices, very few companies are able to keep a position in the market without changes in organisation of work and workers. And those that can perform good responses to such challenges are achieving a better economical stability. The companies have found different ways to face this reality according to size, capital and position. We could find two main paths: one where companies outsource a part or the entire production to another territory (for example, several manufacturing tasks), close and/or dismissal the workers. Other path, where companies up skilled their capacities investing, for example, in design, workers training, conception and introduction of new or original products. This paper will present some results from the European project WORKS – Work organisation and restructuring in the knowledge society (6th Framework Programme), focusing the Portuguese case studies in several clothing companies in what concern implications of global context for the companies in general and for the workers in particular, in a comparative analysis with some other European countries.