A.A. Ozok and P. Zaphiris (Eds.): Online Communities, LNCS 5621, pp. 117–125, 2009. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009 Notice Board as Metaphor for Social Media Service in Chemical Factory Sampo Teräs and Petri Mannonen Helsinki University of Technology, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Finland {sampo.teras, petri.mannonen}@tkk.fi Abstract. Work in paper and chemical factories include controlling several processes and cooperating with several workers. This needs lots of awareness and information sharing. Breakdowns in information sharing can lead to low quality production and unsafe work situations. During last couple of years dif- ferent social media and web 2.0 applications and services have become popular ways of sharing information in leisure environment. We created a prototype from social media perspective to respond the needs in information sharing in factories. Our electronic notice board prototype (El Nobo) uses a metaphor from process operators’ current work environment and is designed to face the specific needs that occur in the chemical factory process operators’ work. The prototype aims to introduce social media type of working practices to process control work and to test the possibilities of informal cross-organizational information sharing in industrial settings. Keywords: Awareness, Control room, Factory work, Prototype, Process controlling, Social media, User interface, Web 2.0. 1 Introduction Controlling complex processes for example in paper and chemical industries is a challenging task. Even a seemingly small factory contains several states, items and personnel working with it, and operating larger factories definitely isn't a simple and straightforward assignment. For example chemical plants usually include multiple interlinked production units and processes. Thus process control work requires lots of collaboration between workers both inside the unit and between various units in a factory complex. Information sharing is an important part of this collaboration and also the process itself requires a lot of attention to ensure production quality and staff safety. [1] For example our studies revealed a situation, where factory 1 didn't inform to factory 2 that they cannot receive all the raw material factory 2 produces. This lead to a pile of mixed type raw materials outside the factory and they couldn't optimize the production of such deteriorated materials. It is quite unlikely that lack of information would lead into tragic accidents, but minor mishaps might happen if correct information is not reported to the right person.