Your new colleague is a robot. Is that ok?

Human robot collaboration is a concept under development that will be applied within manufacturing environments in the near future to increase efficiency and quality. While there have been significant advances in technology to enable this progress there is still little known about the wider human factors issues of employing such systems in High Value Manufacturing environments. This paper sets out our current understanding of key organisational and individual factors which need to be explored

The use of job aids for visual inspection in manufacturing and maintenance

Visual inspection is a task regularly seen in manufacturing applications and is still primarily carried out by human operators. This study explored the use of job aids (anything used to assist the operator with the task, such as lists, check sheets or pictures) to assist with visual inspection within a manufacturing facility that inspects used parts. Job aids in the form of inspection manuals were used regularly during the inspection process, and how accurately they were followed was dependent on a number of factors such as size of part, experience of the operator, and accuracy of the inspection manuals. If the job aids were well structured, well written and accessible, then the inspectors were seen to follow them, however for certain jobs inspectors were seen to change the inspection order making inspection more efficient. The findings of the study suggest that prior experience can help in designing efficient, easy to use job aids and that a collaborative approach to design as well as using pictorial examples for comparison purposes would improve the inspection process

GLOBAL TRANSFORMATIONS, LOCAL ACTIVISM: “NEW” UNIONISM’S ENGAGEMENT WITH ECONOMIC AND HEALTH CARE TRANSFORMATION IN URBAN CENTRAL APPALACHIA

It has long been argued that the organization of the U.S. health care system is shaped by the struggles between capital and labor, and this relationship is of increasing significance today. Transformations from an industrial to a service economy, rising insurance costs, neoliberal social policies, and decreased labor union power have increased the number of Americans with reduced access to health care, especially for service workers and women. This dissertation is an ethnographic study of how workers in two leading unions in the “new” unionism movement, the Retail, Wholesale, and Distribution Service Union (RWDSU) and the United Steelworkers (USW) in urban Central Appalachia, characterize union membership and economic (and benefit) transformations that threaten security for working and middle class families. Using health care as a case study, this dissertation demonstrates the ways in which economic transformations are making health care less affordable for working and middle class families. Through a discussion of the importance of union membership that highlights job protection in the face of the expansion and increasing feminization of service work and the decline in work sponsored benefits, this dissertation details how these processes reduce access to and affordability of health care. In so doing, this research highlights individual pragmatic action and broader union activism in seeking economic and health security for their families. More broadly, new unionism tactics are described in the actions of a Central Labor Council as it seeks to renew community alliances and link rank-and-file concerns of job security to current labor issues, including the Employee Free Choice Act and Right-to-Work legislation, on local, state, and national levels. This dissertation links access to health care problems in this community to broader national issues (e.g. job protection, service work, and outsourcing) and highlights how union members, individually and collectively, are participating in “new” unionism tactics to maintain job security and secure resources, including health care, for their families

Investigating sexual health services for young people in Stockton-on-Tees: a participatory approach

The project design aimed to recruit a number of young people in the Stockton-on-Tees area to research the sexual health services in whatever manner they wished to. The remit was purposefully broad so as to allow the young people involved as much autonomy and choice as possible. Participatory methods were the theoretical base, in order for young people to assess the sexual health services in the area in which ever way they felt was most appropriate. As a result of this research wider theoretical issues were addressed. The position of youth in research, society and in relation to sexual health is addressed, the marginalised situation of young people discussed and the way that social trends have radically altered the nature of youth in Britain today. The nature of participatory research, especially in relation to its use within a large bureaucratic institution, and including young people in relation to sexual health. The problems and issues that came out during the research period are explored and discussed in relation to the literature and the experience of a number of the young researchers. This research was successful in recruiting young men and made a large number of practical suggestions to improve the sexual health services in Stockton for young people

Shaking Up Traditional Training With Lynda.com

Supporting the diverse technology training needs on campus while resources continue to dwindle is a challenge many of us continue to tackle. Institutions from small liberal arts campuses to large research universities are providing individualized training and application support 24/7 by subscribing to the lynda.com Online Training Library(r) and marketing the service to various combinations of faculty, staff and students. As a supplemental service on most of our campuses, lynda.com has allowed us to extend support to those unable to attend live lab-based training, those who want advanced level training, those who want training on specialized applications, and those who want to learn applications that are not in high demand. The service also provides cost effective professional development opportunities for everyone on campus, from our own trainers and technology staff who are developing new workshops, learning new software versions or picking up new areas of expertise from project management to programming, to administrative and support staff who are trying to improve their skills in an ever-tighter economic environment. On this panel discussion, you will hear about different licensing approaches, ways of raising awareness about lynda.com on our campuses, lessons learned through implementation, reporting capabilities, and advice we would give for other campuses looking to offer this service

Facilitating Pharmacogenetic Association Studies Using an Extensible Genotype Information Management System

Large-scale genome data projects employing automated, high-throughput techniques have led to a deluge of genomic data that necessitate robust informatic solutions. COBRA-DB is an integrated web-based genome information management system that provides storage for pharmacogenomic information including genotypic, phenotypic and resequencing data. The system provides an integrated solution for the acquisition, organization, storage, retrieval and analysis of pharmacogenomic data and offers a platform for genome annotation and analysis. The system also includes an export utility to automate submission of data to other bioinformatic resources and public data repositories. A web interface provides flexible data import and export options and allows users to access and download data via simple query forms. The COBRA database is dedicated to the efficient management of pharmacogenomic data with the intent to facilitate genotype-phenotype association studies and catalyze pharmacogenomic research. COBRA-DB is an internal, proprietary application in use by the Division of Clinical Pharmacology at Indiana University School of Medicine.This research is supported by NIGMS grant UO1-GM61373-05, Tamoxifen Pharmacogenetics and Clinical Effects, (Principle Investigator: David Flockhart, MD, PhD), NLM grant 5-K22-LM009135-02, Bioinformatics approaches to characterizing amino acid function, (Principle Investigator: Sean Mooney, PhD) and funds provided through an INGEN grant. The Indiana Genomics Initiative (INGEN) is supported in part by the Lilly Endowment

How and why we need to capture tacit knowledge in manufacturing: Case studies of visual inspection

Human visual inspection skills remain superior for ensuring product quality and conformance to standards in the manufacturing industry. However, at present these skills cannot be formally shared with other workers or used to develop and implement new solutions or assistive technologies because they involve a high level of tacit knowledge which only exists in skilled operators' internal cognitions. Industry needs reliable methods for the capture and analysis of this tacit knowledge so that it can be shared and not lost but also so that it can be best utilised in the transfer of manual work to automated systems and introduction of new technologies and processes. This paper describes two UK manufacturing case studies that applied systematic task analysis methods to capture and scrutinise the tacit knowledge and skills being applied in the visual inspection of aerospace components. Results reveal that the method was effective in eliciting tacit knowledge, and showed that tacit skills are particularly needed when visual inspection standards lack specification or the task requires greater subjective interpretation. The implications of these findings for future research and for developments in the manufacturing industry are discussed