This has been particularly well illustrated in many Tavistok studies, such as that
conducted by Eric Trist and Ken Bamforth on technological change in coal mining in
England in the late 1940s. The attempt to mechanize the mining process through the
introduction of the “long-wall method,” which in effect brought assembly-line coal cutting to
the coal face, created severe problems by destroying the informal fabric of social relations
present in the mine. The new technology promised increases in efficiency yet brought all the
social problems now associated with the modern factory, compounded many times by much
worse physical conditions. The resolution of the problems rested in finding a means of
reconciling human needs and technical efficiency.