[apologies for cross-posting]

 

Call for papers for a special issue on:

 

Cooperation on the Shoopfloor: CSCW in Manufacturing and Industry Settings
(A Special Issue of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): The Journal of Collaborative Computing and Work Practices, https://www.springer.com/journal/10606)

 

Guest Editors: Thomas Ludwig (University of Siegen), Myriam Lewkowicz (Troyes University of Technology), Doris Aschenbrenner (Delft University), Torkil Clemmensen (Copenhagen Business School)

 

Website: http://industry.cscw-research.com/ [Detailed information]

 

This special issue takes steps towards examining how workers, tasks, structures, and technologies have changed within manufacturing settings within the last years. We invite participants from a diversity of disciplines and perspectives to contribute with insights about cooperation on the shopfloor and the impact of novel manufacturing technologies within these settings. We aim to deepen our understanding of actual work practices and relations in contexts such as manufacturing, knowledge-intense production processes and related practices such as engineering or work preparation.

 

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

•                    Skills, qualifications and competences of human workers. What are the novel digitalization skills that workers need to in order to shape their work processes? How to ensure that ‘operator 4.0’ employees’ experiences do become not worse, but better than before?

•                    Tools, processes, services and architectures for supporting the cooperation on the shopfloor: What are the tools, services and architectural infrastructures for supporting the work and conflicts in manufacturing settings? What are the impacts of cyber-physical systems on cooperation? What are the characteristics of tools that support articulation work and coordination processes during work practices?

•                    Social and organizational factors influencing cooperation issues: Work within industry settings heavily relies on social and organizational structures. What are the social and organizational aspects that foster cooperation in industry? How is labor distributed? How could social and organizational aspects shape the cooperation on the shopfloor? How do workers interact with and collaborate with semi-autonomous systems?

•                    On the one hand, emerging technology is intended to simplify work, but on the other hand, there are a multitude of knowledge-intensive work processes which can be traced back to rising productivity requirements and increasing product complexity. Therefore, the question of an adequate support of knowledge-intensive work and the technical design of this support arises: What are suitable tools to manage knowledge and share expertise? How can the experience of experts be processed and which tools can be used?

•                    Methodological challenges and innovative methodologies: Design- and technology-oriented research and its prototypes are often developed with the employees for the actual workflows of the shop floor. However, the evaluation of the prototypes is difficult, as machines and thus capital are lost in case of errors. How can the claim between participatory design with iterative steps and the expectation of a finished product be met?

All contributions will be rigorously peer reviewed to the usual exacting standards of JCSCW. Further information, including JCSCW submission procedures and advice on formatting and preparing manuscripts, can be found at: http://www.springer.com/computer/journal/10606, Manuscripts are submitted via the online manuscript system at: https://www.editorialmanager.com/cosu/ [SI: Cooperation on the shopfloor]

Important dates:

•                    Submissions due: 30 September 2020

•                    Reviews due: 31 December 2020

•                    Notification to authors: 9 January 2021

•                    Revised version due: 1 March 2021

Contact: specialissue@cscw-research.com

Best regards (on behalf of all editors),

Thomas Ludwig.

 

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Prof. Dr. Thomas Ludwig

 

Professor for Cyber-Physical Systems

 

University of Siegen, Institute for Information Systems

Kohlbettstr. 15, 57072 Siegen, Room US-D 112

Phone: +49 271 740 4763 Mobile Phone: +49 176 62656570

E-Mail: thomas.ludwig@uni-siegen.de

Web: http://www.cps.wineme.fb5.uni-siegen.de