Transformações na organização do trabalho em empresas que adotaram tecnologias compatíveis com a indústria 4.0.

Abstract

Industrial digitization is a central point in the global discussion surrounding Industry 4.0 and Advanced Manufacturing. However, in Brazil, the academic discussion is strongly focused on enabling technologies and organizational aspects, which are essential to the objectives defended by Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing. This study aims to identify how transformation in the organization of work in relation to the implementation of enabling technologies in Industry 4.0. More specifically, understand if the implementation of technology projects adopts a sociotechnical approach. For this, this study focused on industrial operation and maintenance, and its interface with other support areas, especially information technology. Identifying which work organization practices are being adopted for functional integration was a goal in this research. An in-depth investigation allowed to observe if there has been an increase in responsibility and freedom for decision making by the different teams involved in the industrial operation. For this, a multiple case study methodology was adopted, being carried out as three individual projects. The results show that the socio-technical approach has not been the focus of the technological adoption projects, characterizing them closer to the configuration of load enrichment and the Toyota Production model. The main changes in the organization of work were identified as increasing the operator's responsibility for expanding activities performed or replacing them with others more focused on the control and monitoring of the production system, linked to a standardization of results. In addition, the organizational effort was made to internalize the knowledge and skills linked to technological development and implementation with the creation of specific areas of industrial automation. Finally, a simplification of the operations was observed with the increase in complexity of the technological system, increasing the direct participation of the industrial automation team on the factory floor, both in the configuration of technological systems, as well as in the treatment of variances. In this sense, the operations team has not experienced increase of freedom and participation in the decisionmaking process, but the support team only, especially related to automation.