Completed research projects
in the History of Technolgy

The history of industry 4.0. Engineering concepts for the factory in the Second Half of the 20th Century

Nora Thorade, Julia Erdogan

Project funded by DFG, 4/2018 – 3/2022

In recent years, the factory of the future has again become the center of scientific and public discussions about efficient, competitive and socially responsible production. The catchwords here are “Industry 4.0” and “Smart Factory”. However, the idea behind this concept does not seem to be new from a historical perspective.

Since the late 1970s, the future of factory production has been widely discussed, taking into account newly emerging technologies for information, communication and automation. A look at these new concepts of factory, which have been developed in university and non-university research in Germany, shows an amazing persistence. Therefore, the project asks the question whether Industry 4.0 or Smart Factory are a new approach or rather a continuation of older ideas of a “factory of the future”.

In contrast to previous research, the visions, concepts and concrete research projects by the engineering sciences – and more specifically those undertaken in manufacturing and production research – are the focus of this project. By analyzing these research projects, models, designs and concepts, the study will contribute to the history of automation and digitization of the industrial world of work. Concepts such as Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM), which envision a factory of the future as computer-integrated or supported by computers and as a holistic system based on information technology, are central to the project. Despite the failure of CIM’s implementation in the 1990s, essential conceptual ideas for the “factory of the future” persisted and have recently emerged again in today’s concepts. Parallels can be seen in the widely held regard for holistic production, the promise of economic advantage, the hesitancy in implementation as well as the various technical and public discussions surrounding these conceptual ideas. The different discourses also addressed and analyzed visions and fears that stemmed from the computerization of work in general, and addressed the question how the future of work will look like, and whether the replacement of man by machine is going to inevitably lead to factories devoid of humans. The project analyzes these social debates as well as the role and significance of engineering research in public discourse.

The developments and improvements of technologies and concepts as well as the discourse and reactions to different designs of the “factory of the future” will be described and explained using the concept of the “knowledge path”. The concept of path dependence has already proven productive in the history of technology and is intended to help explain the formation, shaping, and especially the stability of a research direction. In general, the path concept aims at analyzing and explaining the continuity and consistency of a directional path once it has been settled on. Despite dead ends, detours, and adjustments in the practical application, automation and digitization appear to have become the leitmotifs for the “factory of the future” and for today’s idea of manufacturing and production.

Literature:

Die Vierteilung der Vergangenheit. Eine Kritik des Begriffs Industrie 4.0, in: Technikgeschichte 86 (2019) H.2, S. 3-20. (zusammen mit Martina Heßler )

History of computing

Challenges of computerization: The example of the printing unions

By Karsten Uhl

Project funded by DFG, 9/2018 – 9/2021

This project dealt with technological, social, and cultural transformations in the printing industry during the 1970s and 1980s.

It is crucial to focus on this societal context for investigating the trade union crisis of this period. The printing union served as a good example because its strong negotiating position rested on a robust union participation rate amongst its highly skilled workers. The project investigated the period from the 1950s to the 1980s, a time period during which the printing industry moved from a basis of skilled craftsmanship into industrial printing. The main focus was be on the invention of computer technology during the 1970s and 1980s; the increasing use of Desktop Publishing since 1985 then marks the final stages of computerization in the printing industry so far.

Publications (in English)

Karsten Uhl: Challenges of Computerization and Globalization: The Example of the Printing Unions, 1950s to 1980s, in: Since the Boom. Continuity and Change in the Western Industrialized World after 1970, hg. v. Sebastian Voigt, Toronto 2020, S. 129-152.

For further publications in German see the German version of this site.

Urban History

Industrial and Automotive Cities in the 20th Century.

By Martina Heßler, Jörn Eiben

Project funded by DFG, 2015-2021

Up to now, research on the history of industrial cities has not looked at differences resulting from the dominance of a particular industry within one city. The research project on industrial cities has focused on different types of industrial cities such as automotive cities, steel towns, and port cities, albeit with a focus on automotive cities.

The automotive industry today is still a key industry on which other branches of industry depend. In addition, the automobile is a consumer good that – despite resource and environmental problems – symbolically stands for prosperity, individual freedom, and modernity. Automotive culture has left its mark on cities. In contrast to many Western industrial cities, which were built in the 19th century and are now mainly subject to shrinking, these cities have a complex history, which cannot be told exclusively as a story of rise and fall of industrial cities, especially when viewed from a global perspective.

In a project, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), the cities of Wolfsburg and Wilhelmshaven (project leader Heßler) and the cities of Rüsselsheim and Völklingen (project leader Zimmermann) were investigated in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Clemens Zimmermann, University of Saarland.

The project has been completed. The monograph by Dr. Jörn Eiben has been published:

  • Jörn Eiben: Industriestädte und ihre Krisen. Wilhelmshaven und Wolfsburg in den 1970er und 1980er Jahren, Göttingen 2020.

Science Cities

By Prof. Martina Heßler

Science and cities are intertwined in many ways. Historically, cities have often been regarded as places of knowledge, exchange, and the creation of something new. A project (Habilitation Project) based at the Research Center of the Deutsches Museum, using the city of Munich as an example, investigated how the relationship between the city and science developed during the second half of the 20th century.

Literature:

  • Martina Heßler: Die kreative Stadt. Zur Neuerfindung eines Topos. Bielefeld 2007.

History of Visualization / Knowledge Communication

By Martina Heßler

Funded by the BMBF, 04/2005 – 06/2008

The role that images and visualizations play in natural sciences is obvious. A research project investigated visual thinking and visual communication in the natural sciences (project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, BMBF). Researchers from the University of Potsdam and the Humboldt University, Berlin, cooperated on this project.

History of Things / History of Design

By Martina Heßler

The history of technology is often regarded as having a natural affinity to objects and to materiality. Thus, various publications have investigated if and how the history of objects, design, and technology can be productively combined. One such question would be how things and design have shaped modern technical culture. In a research project, practices of discarding items and their counter-movements, such as specific forms of recycling design in the 1970s, were examined.

The History of the Factory

Gender, Space and Technology in the Factory. The “Rational” Design of Industrial Workplaces in Germany 1900-1970.

By Karsten Uhl

Project funded by DFG, 2008-2013

The project showed how rationalization and humanization of industrial work formed the core of 'rational' design of the factory at the beginning of the 20th century. Consequently, the usual periodization of the “end to the Fordist mode of production” in the mid-1970s must be called into question. The post-Fordist practices of labor, which researchers generally tended to locate after that time, can already be identified as elements of rationalization debates and practices in the period between WWI and WWII.

The project was carried out in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Mikael Hård at the Technical University of Darmstadt from 2008 to 2012 and funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG. In 2014, project team member Karsten Uhl published its main results in his professorial dissertation.