FAULT PREVENTION, JOB DESIGN, AND THE ADAPTIVE-CONTROL OF ADVANCED MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY

Traditional accounts of the effect of work design on performance invok e motivational processes. Recent work involving advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) suggests a major explanatory factor in this link is cognitive. Job designs that give operators enhanced responsibility, an d place less reliance on specialist support, lead to increased system performance. A key aspect of the potential performance improvement is the development of fault prevention strategies by operators. We delibe rately focus on laboratory-based tasks on adaptive control to explore the insights they provide for the AMT context. These demonstrate two p otential types of knowledge and their acquisition: implicit and explic it. The principal suggestion from this perspective is that implicit kn owledge is implicated in fault prevention, and that its acquisition de pends on active involvement in fault management of AMT systems. This l eads to a surprising perspective on the respective roles of job design and training in promoting AMT system performance. We propose that job design should be viewed as providing the opportunity to learn and exe rcise knowledge in fault prevention, and that formal, instructionally based training has a greater role in fault diagnosis and rectification .