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Faced with low productivity despite improved equipment, and with drift from the pits despite both higher wages and better amenities... a point seems to have been reached where the [coal] industry is in a mood to question a method it has taken for granted.

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More quotes by Eric Trist

Socio-technical analysis is made at three levels - the primary work system; the whole organization; and macrosocial phenomena.

The evolution of socio-technical systems (1981)

Every time the cycle is stopped, some 200 tons of coal are lost. So close is the task interdependence that the system becomes vulnerable from its need for 100 percent performance at each step.

We know from experience that technology can be changed. We have learned in the quality-of-working-life enterprise not to accept the technological imperative.

Eric Trist cited in: Alternatives. Vol 8 (1980)

Socio-technical studies needed to be carried out at three broad levels - from micro to macro - all of which are interrelated

The evolution of socio-technical systems (1981)

The longwall method [can be] regarded as a technological system expressive of the prevailing outlook of mass-production engineering and as a social structure consisting of the occupational roles that have been institutionalized in its use.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Eric Trist (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.