António Moniz

In this paper is analyzed the work organization and the forms of quality control in a robotic welding station in a company of office equipment and metal components manufacturing. The robotic cell is recent and works in two shifts. Quality and production rationalization implied in this firms the adoption of a strategy of organization of teamwork, and it is supported the collaborative tools to decrease the possibilities for errors and to improve means and methods of manufacturing. The analysis of quality control process needed the use of productivity indicators. In this way it was possible to understand the connections between the function quality and the new form of work organization adopted in this innovative experience in Portugal.

In the last two decades (70 and 80) there took place an intensive controversy in the field of Industrial and Work Sociology. There the topic of the study object of this scientific discipline is again discussed. This controversy, however, has a relatively different sense in comparison with the one that existed in early 60ies. The more recent one followed the increasing number of possibilities of electronical equipment for data processing at the same time its price is decreasing. In this article we try to give knowledge of the main elements that take part in such debate. It is also important to present the international character of the research developed in association with this discussion. It evolves a plurality of research teams that present, compare and synthesize the results of empirical studies that are applied for a wide variety of countries.

The design of jobs is defined and its different implications. These aspects must be taken into consideration when applied to new automated systems, once it can occur workers in-adaptations to certain type of activity and tasks. Other concepts that emerge from this are the mental workload, stress, work accidents, shift work, or the physical environment that can reveal to become determinant in the process of job design. That means also the organizational design. In this sense, the manufacturing, organizational and individual dimensions, are the most meaningful in the mentioned process of organizational design. Are analyzed different application cases of robotized systems and their social effects, mostly those that are related to the dimensions of working conditions. Are particularly analyzed the new risk situations that occur with the use of robotic systems. One concludes on the need to take into consideration qualitative variables in the definition and design of robotic cells, jobs and production systems. This consideration influences directly in the labor productivity, in such way that the development of these methodologies of analysis can be considered as integrating the processes of technological innovation in manufacturing.

Industrial rationalization represents a decisive moment of the strategic development of business activities in the last few years. In this sense, it is also a theoretical challenge to Industrial Sociology, since the dimensions, both technical and social, of that rationalization can be underlined. The analysis of the better-known different patterns of rationalization allows us a further knowledge of the main strategies for industrial modernization. Accordingly, this paper presents some results deriving from the application of those strategies. Finally, this paper gives a particular attention to the more recent tendencies of development of integrated systems of production, particularly of those focusing upon the social and organizational aspects of industrial rationalization.

The analysis on the technological and organizational change in the European industry, and particularlly the Portuguese one, has been studied at CESO I&D since its foundation on 1988. Few time after that, started a development project that started from a previous research project on the same topics, and supported by JNICT (Ministry of Science). In that projecto we continued to process data that was then not possible to do in the first one. It was then possible to continue a research programme that was urgent and determinant in the field of industrial sociology in Portugal. It focus again on the processes of technological and organizational change in the manufacturing industry.

A sociologia tem como objecto de análise a acção social e a sua expressão nas relações sociais. Estas relações estão organizadas de múltiplas formas, e conhecem infinitos tipos de interacções humanas. No entanto, o conjunto de relações em que os indivíduos se opõem ou criam laços de solidariedade fundamenta-se e verifica-se na esfera da produção. É efectivamente neste domínio que a conduta humana encontra uma das suas mais importantes determinações. Assim, o desenvolvimento da organização industrial acabou por fornecer verdadeiramente algumas das características essenciais da sociedade moderna. Uma delas é o fenómeno da especialização que se acentuou particularmente na indústria e acabou por abraçar praticamente todos os outros domínios da actividade humana.