In the flow

This volume takes a close look at monitoring activities in chemical and nuclear industrial processes.

The authors document the day-to-day work in these sectors, asking simple questions: What are workers actually doing in a highly automated plant? How do they ensure that production is continuous and that the plant is safe? How do they combine their work on the facility itself and their remote work in the control room? How is the work of employees organized, given that their tasks cannot be consistently determined in advance?

The analysis shatters the image of labor as physical toil or as a social constraint As such, this detailed study of these industrial configurations gives us tools to question the changes underfoot in our work environments, far beyond nuclear and chemical plants.

This book is written in clear, direct language, and includes numerous concrete examples and verbatim quotes from the authors' fieldwork. It is intended for social science and engineering students, as well as for professionals who are confronted on a daily basis with these new ways of organizing production.