We work in cooperation with universities, foundations and trade unions on current issues and thus develop our topics further. Our consultants ensure that theory is transferred into practice.
In cooperation with the Hans Böckler Foundation, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation or the Otto Brenner Foundation, IG Metall, Ver.di or GEW, we have published studies and expert reports on the topics of co-determination, the world of work, the future of work and innovation policy. Some of the studies presented here were produced by our consultant as part of his work for Fast e.V.
Recent Projects
en[AI]ble – Concept, model and testing of a preventive AI supporter to empower stakeholders in SMEs and works councils
The AI consultants and trainers available to date are almost exclusively technology-oriented. We are developing a qualification unit that, in addition to basic AI knowledge, also includes skills in preventive, participative and productive work and organizational design. From the perspective of employees and works councils, the project combines technical aspects with preventive work and organizational design, co-determination and clear regulations on data protection and data security.
Project staff: Dr. Maike Pricelius, Nicolas Colberg, Raphael Kamps
Project sponsor: Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS)
“Sustainable companies and administrations in the digital transformation”, field of action Learning and experimentation spaces AI
Project page of the consortium leader (Institute for Applied Work Sciences)
Duration: September 24, 2020 – September 23, 2023
Project partner:
- ifaa – Institut für angewandte Arbeitswissenschaft, Düsseldorf
- G•IBS – Gesellschaft für Innovation, Beratung und Service mbH, Berlin (für das TBS-Netz)
- Stiftung Mittelstand-Gesellschaft-Verantwortung (Träger der OM), Heidelberg
- RKW Kompetenzzentrum, Eschborn
- ed-media/TH Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern
- youCcom (Unternehmensberatung), Düsseldorf
Further information at info@g-ibs.de
Co-determination
Perspectives on co-determination in holistic production systems. Hans Böckler Foundation and Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Duration: 04.2015 – 04.2018
The efforts towards humanized and increasingly self-responsible work that were widespread in the 1980s and 1990s have now largely resulted in holistic production systems (GPS). These systems make use of the new possibilities of information technology control and are increasingly regarded as the most advanced form of capturing and optimizing operational processes, radiating from the automotive industry. However, the hopes of expanding employees’ creative skills and personal responsibility have only been realized to a limited extent. In many places, GPS seem to increase performance pressure rather than opportunities for participation, and instead of enhancing the implicit knowledge of employees, they are designed to extract and centralize it. The research group examines the extent to which it is possible to reassert the approach of productive co-determination in GPS on the basis of the sociology of knowledge and from a practical perspective.
https://gpsmitbestimmung.wordpress.com/
Price pressure on automotive suppliers and options for action by company interest groups and trade unions
Duration: 01.05. – 31.05.2012 (Project: Dr. Heinz-Rudolf Meißner)
The cooperative relationship between car manufacturers and their suppliers has long been “disturbed” in view of the permanent price and cost pressure exerted by the manufacturers’ procurement departments. Price pressure leads to poorer income and working conditions for many suppliers and, in extreme cases, to the relocation of production and employment to cheaper foreign countries. The entire potential for cost reduction and optimization from the buyers’ point of view is being exploited at the expense of the suppliers and their ability to innovate – suppliers are becoming quasi-departments of the car manufacturers. What could the possible responses of works councils and trade unions look like – are works council networks and the establishment of buyer standards in the form of a “code of conduct” an effective means of ensuring co-determination at company level and keeping it practicable? These issues should be addressed and discussed as part of a brief expert report for the IGM Executive Board.
Innovation
Industry 4.0 and demographic change require new learning concepts, cooperation project with RWTH Aachen University
Duration: 01.12.2013 – 30.11.2016 01.12.2013 – 30.11.2016
An important component of the “Industry 4.0” concept is research into future industrial work and production systems with regard to new approaches to corporate learning. A key challenge in the transition to Industry 4.0 will be to productively utilize the potential of new technologies within socio-technical systems. At the same time, against the backdrop of a skilled labor base that is constantly shrinking as a result of demographic change, approaches are needed that maintain the performance of employees at an advanced age and qualify employees for specific target groups. The desired result is a holistic planning tool that enables service-providing and manufacturing companies in a wide range of sectors to integrate learning facilitation into their future and current work and production systems.
Sectoral study on the woodworking machinery industry
Series: Study of the Hans Böckler Foundation, Vol. 325. Düsseldorf: 2016 325. Düsseldorf: 2016
The woodworking machinery industry is a special sector within the German mechanical engineering industry that is highly competitive internationally and highly innovative on the market. It relies on flexible quality production at the high-end of the product range, which can only function with a high proportion of qualified specialists with extensive experience. A characteristic of small and medium-sized companies in particular, most of which are family-owned, is that little information can be found on the economic situation or details of the employment situation. This is where the sector analysis comes in by locating the sector in the value chain of the timber industry, first presenting the large companies and then the smaller companies in brief profiles, looking at the qualitative and quantitative structure of employment and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of this sector.
Meißner, Heinz-Rudolf / Bochum, Ulrich / Maike Pricelius (2015): Sectoral study: Woodworking machinery manufacturing industry – The sub-sector of global market leaders, study for the Hans Böckler Foundation and IG Metall, Frankfurt / Düsseldorf (online publication)
Current economic and technological challenges facing the photovoltaic industry
Duration: 01.02. – 30.05.2012 (Editing: Dr. Ulrich Bochum / Dr. Heinz-Rudolf Meißner) 2012
In view of the sometimes dramatic situation in this “industry of the future” in Germany – characterized by falling prices, overcapacity, international competition and several insolvencies of listed PV companies in Germany – the IGM Executive Board and the Otto Brenner Foundation commissioned a research project to analyse the current challenges facing the PV industry.
Research project “Innovation dynamics and patterns of division of labor in heterogeneously composed product areas of the automotive industry”
Duration: 01.01.2009 to 31.12.2010
The research project is being carried out at the Berlin Science Center in the research group “Knowledge, Production System and Work” under the direction of Prof. Dr. U. Jürgens by Dr. A. Blöcker and Dr. H.-R. Meißner. It is financially supported by the Hans Böckler Foundation.
Against the background of an intensive debate about the future of industrial work and Germany as an industrial location, about upheavals and turbulence in the automotive industry, we will examine reorganization and internationalization processes. The special research approach is that we question the comparison usually made in science and practice between ‘low-tech’ and ‘high-tech’, in the sense of simple, less complex products and production processes, with standardized and low-skilled work related areas on the one hand and complex and knowledge-based products with highly qualified work on the other. This has important consequences for the assessment of future patterns of territorial and organizational division of labour.
Future of the automotive sector
Automotive conference of IG Metall – Berlin-Brandenburg-Saxony district
Duration: 01.03. – 15.10.2012 (Dr. Heinz-Rudolf Meißner in cooperation with Rüdiger Eschenbach)
The IGM district planned an automotive conference in Saxony for September 2012 to raise the profile of eastern Germany as an automotive location. In addition to the performance of the eastern German locations, the topics of “work contracts” and “temporary work” were also on the agenda. The task was to prepare the conference in terms of content and organization and to provide significant input.
Scientific support for the IG Metall Executive Board: Electromobility (National Electromobility Platform)
Duration: May 2010 – April 2010
Following the adoption of the National Electromobility Development Plan by the German government in 2009, the National Electromobility Platform was established on May 3, 2010. In addition to acatech and the VDA, IG Metall (Berthold Huber) is also represented on the coordination committee. While EUR 500 million has allegedly been committed through projects in the years 2009 to 2011 via the second economic stimulus package to promote R&D projects on electromobility, the stakeholders of the National Platform for Electromobility are to identify further research needs and corresponding project proposals as well as ways in which the goals of lead provider status and Germany’s lead market can be achieved with regard to electromobility.
Dr. Heinz-Rudolf Meißner was asked by IG Metall to provide social science support for this process. The project is funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation.
Electromobility and its effects on the value chain in Baden-Württemberg
Duration: 01.11.2009 – 31.03. 2010 (completed)
A preliminary study for a larger research project was carried out as part of the BMBF project Competence + Innovation, which is based at the IG Metall district management in Baden-Württemberg (Project ELAB – Effects of the electrification of the powertrain on employment and location environment Impact analysis of alternative drive concepts using the example of an ideal-typical aggregate plant, financed by the Hans Böckler Foundation and Daimler AG, carried out by IMU, Fraunhofer IAO and DLR) The aim of this study was to identify the starting points and scope of information sources for estimating the effects on the entire automotive process chain in Baden-Württemberg and to clarify questions about the scope for action by works councils and forward-looking measures. Another question to be clarified was the extent to which the employment perspective (in particular with regard to new qualification requirements) was taken into account by the companies.
This preliminary study is being carried out jointly by the IMU Institute in Stuttgart (Jürgen Dispan) and FAST e.V. Berlin (Dr. H.-R. Meißner).
Future of the German automotive industry (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung)
Duration: July to October 2010
In July 2010, Dr. Heinz-Rudolf Meißner was asked to contribute to a study on the challenges and prospects for structural change in the automotive sector. Together with the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, the IMU Institute (Jürgen Dispan), the Innovative Transport Policy and Sustainable Structural Policy working groups of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, this study was produced.
Here you can find the document as a PDF file
Research project “Anticipation of Change in the Automotive Industry”
Duration: 01.11.2008 to 31.10.2009
The research project was carried out by Dr. H.-R. Meißner at the Berlin Science Center in the research group “Knowledge, Production Systems and Work” under the direction of Prof. Dr. U. Jürgens. The project was carried out as part of the cooperation between the European Automotive Suppliers Association (CLEPA) and the European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF). It is funded by the EU Commission as part of the “Progress” program.
The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), the Confederation of European Automotive Parts Producers (CLEPA) and the European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF), together with the European Commission, have launched a “European Partnership for the Anticipation of Change in the Automotive Industry”. The aim of the CLEPA and EMF project is to set up an informal observatory on structural change in the European automotive industry and to identify ‘good practice’ in selected companies for the use of anticipation mechanisms in order to recognize the employment policy effects of structural change as early as possible and to take measures to prevent or at least minimize negative consequences.
As part of a consortium with the University of St Andrews (Scotland) and Groupe Alpha (France), the WZB will identify examples of good practice in selected companies and present them in case studies. The established processes and institutionalized structures in the companies are the focus of the study.
Website: www.anticipationofchange.eu
Study 1: http://www.anticipationofchange.eu/fileadmin/anticipation/Studies/Study_1_Final.pdf
Study 2: http://www.anticipationofchange.eu/fileadmin/anticipation/Studies/Study_2_Final.pdf
Study 3: http://www.anticipationofchange.eu/fileadmin/anticipation/Studies/Study_3_Final.pdf