It wasn't until later when I started studying economics and statistics that things began to dawn on me. Consequently I gained a better understanding of the subject and first discovered mathematics' ability to make the invisible visible.
Recently work by a team from London University's Institute of Education has shown how the application of mathematics by many staff to increasingly IT-based working practices can illuminate common workplace processes and help in areas like quality management and troubleshooting. Of course highly educated staff have always used maths extensively in these and other areas.
However, the team argues, IT brings increased complexity to all our working lives and this means that other, less well-qualified staff need higher awareness in order to be able to interpret information. Their conclusion is that what they call "techno-mathematical literacies" (TmL) are increasingly important in the workplace and can make a real contribution to improving competitiveness.
One example serves to illustrate the point. In a company making plastic packaging film, the extrusion machine was unstable, resulting in the bubble bursting for no obvious reason. It was only when an operator spotted that the graphs showing one machine's performance looked "odd" at the same time as there was instability in the extrusion bubble that an investigation was started, culminating in the discovery that a set of sealed bearings were worn out.
A professional engineer looking at the same data would have been able to see what was wrong, but here it was the self-taught operator who spotted the problem because, unlike his fellow workers, he had developed an interest in looking at the graphs.
The increasing workplace proliferation of such pieces of mathematical information means there is a need for higher levels of TmL for broader layers of employees. The London University team thus hopes to develop tools through which TmL can be made more readily available through qualifications like NVQs and our own Diploma in Packaging Technology.
