We present an ethnographic study of work in the control
room of a manufacturing plant. While work in the plant
is oriented towards a very strict production orthodoxy
and is to large degrees automated, we find that the
overall dependability of the plant is not so much the
outcome of careful planning that has gone into the
design of the production management system. Rather, it
is a situated accomplishment resulting from the work of
competent members going about their everyday activities,
which are oriented towards and made accountable through
the production orthodoxy as opposed to being determined
by it. pdf
