Towards a Metamodel to Support the Joint Optimization of Socio Technical Systems

Abstract

Designing and implementing functional Socio Technical Systems (STS) is becoming increasingly important, as technologies become more pervasive and critical to everyday life. Socio technical systems are said to be efficient and useful when they are "jointly optimized" yet few system designers understand what joint optimization is, and how to achieve it. The paper explains the core tenets of Joint Optimization and identifies the need for artifacts to support the built in design of joint optimization in socio technical systems from the early stages of development. JOM (Joint Optimization Metamodel) is proposed, as a cognitive artifact to help conceptualize and model joint optimization, and five types of JO are identified resulting from conceptual evaluation of the metamodel.

Digital Transformation of Industrial Organizations: Toward an Integrated Framework

“…In STS, the social and technical elements must work together to accomplish organizational goals, and the key issue here is to design change in such a way that both parts yield positive outcomes, called 'joint optimization' (Appelbaum, 1997;Di Maio, 2014). Our results demonstrate that the identified dimensions of enablers, i.e.…”

“…Therefore, our research sheds light on the most critical social elements (non-technical), namely leadership, structures and culture, the kind of changes/updates required in these elements and how such changes can lead industrial organizations toward impactful digital transformation. Third, we have further explained how social elements are jointly optimized within themselves, leading digital transformation journeys of industrial organizations toward common goals, expressively contributing to the STS literature from a joint-optimization point of view (Appelbaum, 1997;Di Maio, 2014). Fourth, our study also contributes to the body of literature on leadership (Vial, 2019), structures (Matt et al, 2015), and culture (Imgrund et al, 2018), by explaining what kinds of changes these elements require in relation to the digital transformation of industrial organizations.…”

“…Such a perspective provides the digital transformation literature with a holistic viewpoint on the most important social elements (enablers) that need attention in order to achieve performance outcomes. Second, past literature on STS theory has highlighted that the critical system failures occur for 'non-technical' reasons (Di Maio, 2014). Therefore, our research sheds light on the most critical social elements (non-technical), namely leadership, structures and culture, the kind of changes/updates required in these elements and how such changes can lead industrial organizations toward impactful digital transformation.…”

Cognitive Robotics and Control

“…Socio-technical system (STSs) are those considering requirements spanning hardware, software, personal, and community aspects [14][15][16]. Some examples were shown in our special issue, from operating rooms and exoskeletons to industrial robots for automatic spraying and motion control using edge computing.…”

A complex systems approach to e-governance adoption and implementation in Bayelsa State, Nigeria

“…The design considerations of e-governance are as discussed below. Since the STS functionality is optimized only when there is synergy and collaboration between people, technology and the environment, tasks and processes and the whole system design must be devised taking into account the three and their interactions (MAIO, 2014).…”