A socio-technical approach for the design of a production control system : towards controllable production units

In the design of a production control system much attention is usually paid to technicalaspects, whereas the elaboration upon social aspects remain underexposed. SociotechnicalSystems Theory (SST) emphasizes the importance of finding a joint optimization between the technical and the social systems of an organization. This paper investigates to what extent STS-principles can be applied in the design of a production control system. Part of the paper is devoted to the integration of STS-principles in a bottom-up design methodology for a production control system. A case study demonstrates the usefulness of such an integration in the design and allocation of production control tasks and responsibilities among the various departments /people of the firm.