Swedish Engineering Industry Research Articles

Energy End-Use Categorization and Performance Indicators for Energy Management in the Engineering Industry

Energy efficiency (EE) improvement is one of the most crucial elements in the decarbonization of industry. EE potential within industries largely remains untapped due to the lack of information regarding potential EE measures (EEM), knowledge regarding energy use, and due to the existence of some inconsistencies in the evaluation of energy use. Classification of energy end-using processes would increase the understanding of energy use, which in turn would increase the detection and deployment of EEMs. The study presents a novel taxonomy with hierarchical levels for energy end-use in manufacturing operations for the engineering industry, analyzes processes in terms of energy end-use (EEU) and CO2 emissions, and scrutinizes energy performance indicators (EnPIs), as well as proposing potential new EnPIs that are suitable for the engineering industry. Even though the study has been conducted with a focus on the Swedish engineering industry, the study may be generalizable to the engineering industry beyond Sweden.

Continuous improvement capability in the Swedish engineering industry

This article reports findings from the Swedish part of the 2nd International Continuous Improvement Survey. Based on Bessant's evolutionary model of continuous improvement behaviour, the continuous improvement capability level of the Swedish engineering industry is estimated. The data analysis shows that there is a need for progression towards higher continuous improvement capability levels. Therefore, the specific abilities to develop in order to support such a move forward are clarified. In addition to being an illustration of manufacturing practices in Sweden from a continuous improvement perspective, this article contributes to the field of Operations Management by being the first attempt to replicate the work of Bessant via a large-scale survey study. The model is found valid and it shows that development of continuous improvement abilities contribute to the enhancement of plant performance.

Rationalizing Technical Work: Visions and Realities of the "Systematic Drawing Office" in Sweden, 1890-1940

This article discusses the efforts within the Swedish engineering industry in the early decades of the twentieth century to rationalize the work of producing drawings and designs. The aim was to create a "systematic drawing office," with efficient internal organization and practices, that would play a leading role in guiding production on the shop floor. Modernizing managers and engineers were inspired by US examples; German contacts and collaboration were also important. The article discusses changes in the everyday work practices of designers and draftsmen, with a special focus on their technical and conceptual tools of the trade. It also traces the resistances and contradictions involved when managers tried to systematize the messy practices of drawing office work, both within the drawing office itself and in relation to workers on the shop floor. Thus, it gives a picture of how early twentieth-century visions of industrial modernization were (and were not) translated into everyday realities of the workplace.

Neurodegenerative diseases in welders and other workers exposed to high levels of magnetic fields.

Previous work has suggested an increase in risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Alzheimer's disease among workers exposed to extremely low-frequency magnetic fields (ELF-MF). We evaluated the relation between ELF-MF from occupational exposures and mortality from neurodegenerative diseases. The study was based on a cohort of Swedish engineering industry workers, comprising 537,692 men and 180,529 women. The cohort was matched against the 3 most recent censuses and The Causes of Death Registry. Levels of ELF-MF exposure were obtained by linking occupation according to the censuses to a job exposure matrix. We used 4 levels of exposure and considered both the primary and contributing causes of death, 1985-96. The risk of Alzheimer's disease as primary or contributing cause of death increased with increasing exposure to ELF-MF among both men and women, with a relative risk (RR) of 4.0 and a 95% confidence interval (95% CI) of 1.4-11.7 in the highest exposure group for both sexes combined. There was a RR of 2.2 (95% CI: 1.0-4.7) for ALS in the highest exposure group with the suggestion of an exposure-response relationship. No evidence of increased risk was seen for Parkinson's disease or multiple sclerosis. The findings support previous observations of an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease and ALS among employees occupationally exposed to ELF-MF. Further studies based on morbidity data are warranted.

Product development, innovation networks, infrastructure and agglomeration economies

The continuos inflow of new products is a fundamental condition for a well-functioning market economy. It has been argued that new products are the outcome of a process which is based upon the principle “novelty by combination”. This characterization applies well to the type of product development analyzed in this paper, which comprises the development of new products and the renewal of old products in the Swedish engineering industry through the adoption of a specific type of innovation, namely the incorporation of information technology based components and their pertinent software, i.e. microelectronics. According to the theoretical perspective presented in the paper, a new or a renewed product may result from “random collisions” or from a cautious matching between technical opportunities and customer needs. A necessary condition for such “collisions” or matching to occur is communication and, hence, communication in innovation networks is one key factor in product development. The empirical part of the paper contains an empirical test of the role of establishment characteristics, innovation networks, infrastructure endowment and agglomeration economies for the first use of micro-electronics in product development at the plant level. The empirical results seem to confirm the importance of innovation networks as well as of infrastructure endowment and agglomeration economies for an early use of micro-electronics in product development.

Technological systems and economic policy: the diffusion of factory automation in Sweden

This paper argues that technological systems (defined as networks of agents interacting in each specific area of technology under a particular institutional infrastructure) constitute a useful unit of analysis for not only innovation and diffusion studies but also work related to technology policy. In the case of Sweden's technological system for factory automation (e.g. robots), it is suggested that three features are central to explaining the extensive diffusion of new technology in the Swedish engineering industry, namely ‘bridging institutions’, user-supplier linkages, and critical mass coupled to advanced economic competence among a key set of users. As regards public policy, it is argued that its role is to facilitate the formation of new technological systems and to enhance the functioning of existing systems rather than to rectify individual market failures. This can be done by creating or strengthening ‘bridging institutions’ and centers of excellence, promoting speedy and wide diffusion of engineering competence, and strengthening compensating mechanisms when important nodes in the networks fail. Given the difficulty of identifying future technological opportunities, the simultaneous pursuit of alternative strategies, early identification of important developments, and increasing the absorptive capacity of the economy become important aspects of public policy.

Sickness absenteeism in an engineering industry--an analysis with special reference to absence for neck and upper extremity symptoms.

Neck and upper extremity symptoms (NES) are reported to increase among industrial workers. In order to quantify sickness absenteeism and relate it to some factors a questionnaire study was performed among 2,814 workers occupied at a Swedish engineering industry. Questions pertaining to age, sex, worker category, work with vibrating handtools, type of job and smoking habits were analyzed and correlated to sickness absenteeism for the previous year (1983). We found that the average days lost for personal illness was 17.2 days; 16.2 for men and 23.5 days for women. Ninety-four persons, 77 men and 17 women comprising 3.0% of all employees were sicklisted for NES corresponding to 3.3% of total sickness time lost. Blue-collar workers were sicklisted for NES five times more often than white collar workers and women in type 3 jobs (high NE stress), twice that of men occupied in the same type of job. Smokers had significantly higher absenteeism than non-smokers for any reason studied including NES. The study indicated a high prevalence of present NES problems (23%) but also that NES as a cause of leave of absence was relatively rare (3%).

The development of the Swedish engineering industry: A rejoinder

The development of the Swedish engineering industry: A rejoinder

On unit prices and their use in the analysis of the international specialization pattern within heterogeneous industries

The existence of factor intensity reversals between industrial countries has sometimes been attributed to differences in intra-industry specialisation. The industries studied are in fact quite heterogeneous. Consequently the relationships between the specialisation pattern of individual countries and differences in technology between industries may be obscured. In this paper a new method is presented with which specialisation of engineering trade can be studied in great detail. The method rests on the hypothesis that so called (metric) ton prices can be used as a proxy variable for differences in technology in a cross-section of engineering products. This hypothesis is further specified and tested in the paper for a cross-section of engineering products consisting of 40 subindustries of the Swedish engineering industry. If the outcome of the test can be assumed to hold both for a lower level of commodity aggregation and for other countries as well, the new method can be used to test different trade theories (including the factor proportions theory) on the engineering trade of industrial countries. It uses among other variables three variables constructed from the ton prices in engineering exports of OECD-Europe. The results of this paper carry major implications also on the construction and earlier use of price indices of engineering products. The results seem to imply that ton prices fo not measure product prices of engineering goods but rather the technology used in converting tons of metals into units of engineering goods. The price indices used in studies estimating price elasticities in foreign trade or production functions on time series data rest, however, im part on such an assumption.

Carcinoma of scrotum induced by mineral oil.

Among about 250 automatic lathe operators employed in one Swedish engineering industry, 8 cases of scrotal cancer were discovered over a period of 24 years. These men represent an incidence of about 1400 per million per year. The exposure time to mineral oil was between 19 and 43 years. Treatment of solitary small and medium sized tumours was excision and direct suture. That for large or multiple tumours was total resection of the scrotal wall and reconstruction with split skin grafts. With clinically demonstrable lymph node metastases, bilateral inguinal gland dissection was done. Seven cases have been treated according to these principles and have shown no recurrence after an observation time of from 1 to 20 years. Prophylactic measures of a technical, hygienic, and medical character are discussed. In all probability those protective measures already in use, and those being planned by the industry in question, to reduce oil contamination of the skin to a minimum, will considerably diminish the risk of s...