From the Human Factor to the Skills of Actors in the Industrial World

Abstract The term "human factor" has different meanings, implicitly based upon a static and pejorative concept of the role of men. This traditional vision is becoming less and less relevant faced with the development of training, the progress of technologies and the shift of axes in industrial competition. The company's collaborators acquire a new status, going beyond that of an abstract "factor" or of a passive "resource" to become a real "actor" whose fundamental role is recognised in the collective search of a lasting competitiveness. This phenomenon shows itself in the recent emergence of the concept of competence that we shall try to define more precisely, both in specialised literature and in the industrial application.