Human and Organizational Aspects

Within the focus area of Human and Organizational Aspects, collaboration with Hydro has been initiated, where cybersecurity (CS) is treated as a tool for the workforce and teams in value creating activities. In the paradigm of continuous improvement, cybersecurity (CS) is often left out with the unintentional result of creating vulnerabilities. How can cybersecurity be implemented into the value creating activities and at the same time support the enhanced performance efforts, is the overall question. In this, we had several meetings to discuss CS against the actual performance measurement system of Hydro. During the discussions the organizational design became one of the discussions points. The role of the middle management needs to be redefined to keep up with fast rate of improvement efforts. Accordingly, the resulting information flow between the work shifts and reporting to higher management creates a different coordinating task. The research work in these areas is done in the SFI NORCICS and Lean Digital. The overall backdrop is the Nordic organizational Collaborative Model where autonomy of the workforce is important for motivation and getting the good ideas and initiatives from the workforce to continuously boost the productivity.

Some of these same issues are interesting for Sykehuset Innlandet. The research team are working for developing a research proposal for the Norwegian Research Council in 2023. Cyber awareness in complex organizations with comprehensive use of sensitive information in digital system seems to be a working area for 2023. Some of this can be interesting for the Kongsberg Group.

The learning points, so far, are included into the NTNU life-long learning course for the SINTEF Manufacturing project Produktivitetsspranget (7,5 credits), with 25 participants. Also, the Gemini Centre of Human Centreed Manufacturing has started operations. The Centre hosts researchers on a broad range of organizational issues related to various kinds of technology. It has already initiated two consortia for Horizon Europe applications for 2023.

Students from the Master of Industrial Innovation and Secure Digitalization, MIIDS, are well under way with their master thesis. 4 groups consisting of two persons, are working with CS issues and 2 groups are working on more related topics where CS is central. Capturing actable tacit knowledge is important for enhancing performance and quality of work. This type of knowledge is thought to be a key ingredient for CS and performance of organizations in the future.

For a broader international audience, the researchers are preparing the publication of two books with the publishing companies of Edward Elgar and Taylor & Francis. They describe how industrial innovations helps excellence companies succeed in a secure and sustainable way, and how new digital tools, like blockchain technology, can enhance the speed of environmental sustainability in a safe and trustworthy manner.

SFI NORCICS has employed one PhD Norwegian female candidate for the thematic area of organizational and human side of cybersecurity. In addition, NTNU IØT-G is trying to finance a post doc position for supporting the research.