Dependable Red Hot Action

Abstract

We present a brief observational, ‘ethnographic’, study of the Roughing Mill in a steel plant and use material from recorded activities to provide ‘illustrative vignettes’ of some aspects of the accomplishment and problems of everyday work. The account provides a ‘bottom up’ method for developing a more sophisticated and situated view of the problems of dependability. The paper documents the social organisation of work in the Roughing Mill, the interaction between the computer scheduler and the skill of the mill operator in accomplishing ‘dependable’ production of steel plates from slabs.