Time-mosaic formation of senior workforces for complex irregular work in cooperative farms

Abstract

Although the challenges posed by aging populations are great, they can be offset to some degree by harnessing the increasing vitality and productivity of senior citizens in developed countries. To improve work opportunities for seniors and to make use of their abilities, we propose a mosaic-type work system in which elderly human resources are combined to form a single "virtual worker" based on seamless information sharing. In this study, we particularly focus on part of the mosaic, the time-mosaic, for the stable worker generation in the case of complex irregular work. The objective is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the time-mosaic formation system in cooperative farms for shift work organizations. In interviews with the workers, most of the leading workers at the farm found the system to be useful for effective formation and modification of the time-mosaic. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.