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...

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...

Flexibilisation and complexification of working places, due to the information technologies, requires an holistic approach to the labour reality, in an integrative and wide perspective of different scenarios and operational contexts. Such new changes implies the development of new personal and...

There is an increasing importance of different productive architectures related to worker involvement in the decision making, where is given due attention to the intuitive capabilities and the human knowledge in the optimization and flexibilization of manufacturing processes. Thus having...

Recent studies continue to indicate the existence of a narrow relationship between flexible work organizations and the economic growth, in particular, Sweden and Germany. The measure of this relationship is many times the result of the value added per worker. Therefore, the causes of economic...

The results presented in this article are related to the field of investigation defined inside the European TSER project on "Information Society, Work and Generation of New Forms of Social Exclusion " (SOWING). The thematic center of the project is connected with the question of the relations...

The increasing degree of inter-dependency and integration of economy at a global scale motivated the globalization of scientific and technological knowledge from manufacturing, to the marketing and the strategic management of companies that act as protagonists of these processes. Globalization...

This paper analyses the problems and trends of the introduction of anthropocentric production systems (APS) in small less industrialized member states of the European Union, specifically the case of Portugal, based on the report for the FAST-Anthropocentric Technology Assessment Project (Monitor...

One can assist to significant changes in the organisation of manufacturing systems during the last years. Lean production, network enterprise or the virtual enterprises are reference concepts of the re-organisation of manufacturing systems. Some authors mention a new enterprise paradigm, of...