The starting point for this project is that in year 2011, 100 years have passed since the publication of Taylor’s “The Principles of Scientific Management”. Whether we live in a postmodern and postindustrial era or not, the manufacturing sector maintains its position as the economic backbone of Sweden. After decades of a marketing-biased customer focus in industry and trade, this study is done against the backdrop of a just recently revitalized understanding of production’s importance in the value-chain. The insight that the production function has potential to generate customer value has gained a foothold.


As integrators in multiple interfaces (e.g. the design-manufacturing interface) industrial engineers are central in efforts to regain Sweden’s industrial competitiveness. As an occupational group they are the main carrier of the ideologies prevailing in industrial production.


The occupation has gone through major changes but it has left few traces in the literature. The purpose is to improve the knowledge about the profession of industrial engineering.


The questions are: What changes in work practice, occupational role and professional identity have occurred during the last decades? What does the work practice, occupational role and identity look like today? And what tendencies can be detected as to the future for industrial engineering as a profession?


These questions are investigated with in-depth case studies in two industrial companies