The longwall method [can be] regarded as a technological system expressive of the prevailing outlook of mass-production engineering and as a social s… - Eric Trist

The outstanding feature of the social pattern with which the pre-mechanized equilibrium was associated is its emphasis on small group organisation at the coal face. [Indeed], under these conditions there is no possibility of continuous supervision, in the factory sense, from any individual external to the primary work group.

Socio-technical analysis is made at three levels - the primary work system; the whole organization; and macrosocial phenomena.

# A design principle based on the redundancy of functions rather than on the redundancy of parts (Emery, 1967) characterized the underlying organizational philosophy which tended to develop multiple skills in the individual and immensely increase the response repertoire of the group.