SIGCIS 2010 Workshop Works in Progress

Name:Gustav Sjöblom

Institutional Affiliation:Chalmers University of Technology

Email Address:gustav.sjoblom@chalmers.se

Paper Type:Work in Progress

Paper Title:Technological system or military-industrial-complex – the diffusion of numerically controlled machine tools in Sweden, 1950–1970.

This paper is a study of the diffusion of numerically controlled machine tools (NCMT) in Sweden from the first beginnings in the mid-1950s and up to the breakthrough for deployment of the technology in the late 1960s. The framework is based on a juxtaposition of on the one hand the classic interpretation of the U.S. case by David Noble, emphasizing the role of military and managerial interests in leading NCMT development on to a suboptimal path, on the other hand the more recent efforts by Bo Carlsson and others to build a theory of innovation in technological systems on the basis of factory automation. Sweden presents an interesting case for the contrasting of the above perspectives, since the country has been described both as an early adopter of new technology in engineering, and (recently reinterpreted) as dominated by a military-industrial-complex.
The diffusion of NCMT in Sweden began with work at the airplane manufacturer Saab in the 1950s. More importantly, a vivid debate on automation in the mid-1950s, partly fuelled by the looming prospect of numerical control, sparked three separate committee efforts to promote automation. One of these committees, the State Council for Technical Research funded a one-year study tour to the USA for an engineer from the electrical engineering firm ASEA. ASEA then became a pioneer in NCMT and could use its central position in Swedish industry as well as the beneficial institutional arrangement, especially the engineering industry association Mekanförbundet, to co-ordinate a promotion effort in the 1960s which created a fertile ground for rapid NCMT deployment.
The evidence presented in the paper suggests a number of similarities to David Noble’s case for the U.S., but these pertain mainly to the first phase of technology transfer up to c. 1960. When the technology began to spread in the 1960s, diffusion was driven by ASEA as a first echelon lead user, and strong civilian bridging institution, extending the technological systems interpretation to earlier time periods.

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