Formalisation and use of competencies for industrial performance optimisation: A survey

For many years, industrial performance has been implicitly considered as deriving from the optimisation of technological and material resources (machines, inventories, etc.), made possible by centralized organisations. The topical requirements for reactive and flexible industrial systems have progressively reintroduced the human workforce as the main source of industrial performance. Making this paradigm operational requires the identification and careful formalisation of the link between human resource and industrial performance, through concepts like skills, competencies or know-how. This paper provides a general survey of the formalisation and integration of competence-oriented concepts within enterprise information systems and decision systems, aiming at providing new methods and tools for performance management.