Augmented reality in complex manufacturing systems as an informational problem: A human-centered approach

The informational complexity that characterizes future manufacturing environments raises new problems in the Information Science and Information Management fields. New facets of the information overload problem are being revealed e.g., as textual and "smart data" from the manufacturing processes are continuously generated and pushed to the workers, beyond their cognitive capabilities. The challenge of making use of augmented reality in manufacturing pro- cesses, empowering the human-worker, has not yet been addressed by Information Science as an information organization and retrieval problem. Furthermore, manufacturing processes are more and more knowledge-intensive, so knowledge codification, transfer, and use are another challenge not addressed so far from the information management point of view. Therefore, the objective of this doctoral research project is to study the combination of augmented reality technology (as a way to convey real/virtual visual information), centered in the human-worker (as the crucial key user) as an information organization/retrieval problem, from the theoretical perspectives of Information Field. In this poster, we present the research design and the preliminary results of the literature review

Facing with Collaborative Robots : The Subjective Experience in Senior and Younger Workers

In the past few years, collaborative robots (i.e., cobots) have been largely adopted within industrial manufacturing. Although robots can support companies and workers in carrying out complex activities and improving productivity, human factors related to cobot operators have not yet been thoroughly investigated. The present study aims to understand the subjective experience of younger and senior workers interacting with an industrial collaborative robot. Results show that workers' acceptance of cobots is high, regardless of age and control modality used. Interesting differences between seniors and younger adults emerged in the evaluations of user experience, usability, and perceived workload of participants and are detailed and commented in the last part of the work.Peer reviewe

Smart operators: How Industry 4.0 is affecting the worker's performance in manufacturing contexts

Abstract The fourth industrial revolution is affecting the workforce at strategical, tactical, and operational levels and it is leading to the development of new careers with precise and specific skills and competence. The implementation of enabling technologies in the industrial context involves new types of interactions between operators and machines, interactions that transform the industrial workforce and have significant implications for the nature of the work. The incoming generation of Smart Operators 4.0 is characterised by intelligent and qualified operators who perform the work with the support of machines, interact with collaborative robots and advanced systems, use technologies such as wearable devices and augmented and virtual reality. The correct interaction between the workforce and the various enabling technologies of the 4.0 paradigm represents a crucial aspect of the success of the smart factory. However, this interaction is affected by the variability of human behaviour and its reliability, which can strongly influence the quality, safety, and productivity standards. For this reason, this paper aims to provide a clear and complete analysis of the different types of smart operators and the impact of 4.0 enabling technologies on the performance of operators, evaluating the stakeholders involved, the type of interaction, the changes required for operators in terms of added and removed work, and the new performance achieved by workers

Supporting community engagement through teaching, student projects and research

The Education Acts statutory obligations for ITPs are not supported by the Crown funding model. Part of the statutory role of an ITP is “... promotes community learning and by research, particularly applied and technological research ...” [The education act 1989]. In relation to this a 2017 TEC report highlighted impaired business models and an excessive administrative burden as restrictive and impeding success. Further restrictions are seen when considering ITPs attract < 3 % of the available TEC funding for research, and ~ 20 % available TEC funding for teaching, despite having overall student efts of ~ 26 % nationally. An attempt to improve performance and engage through collaboration (community, industry, tertiary) at our institution is proving successful. The cross-disciplinary approach provides students high level experience and the technical stretch needed to be successful engineers, technologists and technicians. This study presents one of the methods we use to collaborate externally through teaching, student projects and research

How Can Organisations and Business Models Lead to a More Sustainable Society? A Framework from a Systematic Review of the Industry 4.0

The concept of Industry 4.0 has been mainly addressed by the current literature from a technological perspective, overlooking the organisational and even ethical challenges related to this recent paradigm. In order to become &lsquo;4.0 compliant&rsquo;, an enterprise must adapt its organisation and business approaches, and these changes may lead to a significant impact on sustainability. Therefore, we performed a systematic literature review to investigate the most recent Industry 4.0 research streams by adopting a multi-perspective approach. This analysis led to collect insights on the key traits of an Enterprise 4.0: integration, decomposed hierarchy, flexibility, and autonomy. Each of these keywords involves work environments, business and organisational models, and educational approaches, which constitute the key traits of the novel framework proposed in this study

Systematic Review of Usability Engineering Management Studies for the Aging Population -UEM4Agin

Usability management is one of the core elements of any software to make it efficient and effective. Unfortunately, most of the time usability as well as its management is neglected while developing software that may result as ineffective and inefficient software design. In different eras different researchers performed studies to highlight the management of usability and to show its importance. Due to the increase in the aging population, the concern for the aging population assistances of each equipment becomes to be necessary. Number of Steps has been taken so far to help out the aging population but remained limited to visual considerations, such as stronger contrasts or larger characters on the displays and printing, or such physical characteristics as the ease for pressing buttons. In this paper, our focus is to perform a systematic review (SR) of usability management specifically for the aging population/senior citizens and its limitations. The systematic review aims to address three research questions: 1) What is the current status of usability management/usability engineering management research for the aging population/senior citizen around the globe? As we found that the literature on usability management for the aging population began in 1992 and increased thereafter, there is a lack of organized research teams and dedicated usability management journals for researching the aging population. High-impact theoretical studies are scarce. On the application side, no original and systematic research frameworks have been developed. The understanding and definition of usability and usability management is not well synchronized with international norms. 2) What are the existing methods, approaches, frameworks and practices that are currently being used in usability engineering management for the aging population? 3) What are the limitations of usability engineering management for the aging population/senior citizen? Purpose of this study is to identify the current research problems, existing studies for providing valid solution to these problems and will find out the limitations of existing work for covering the existing problems in usability engineering management specifically for the aging population. This will be done by performing quantitative literature of different databases and all the results will be gathered by analyzing and summarizing the statistical data using “R Studio”. Remedial techniques for handling the limitation of usability engineering management will be planned in future for the aging population

Applications of Affective Computing in Human-Robot Interaction: state-of-art and challenges for manufacturing

The introduction of collaborative robots aims to make production more flexible, promoting a greater interaction between humans and robots also from physical point of view. However, working closely with a robot may lead to the creation of stressful situations for the operator, which can negatively affect task performance. In Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), robots are expected to be socially intelligent, i.e., capable of understanding and reacting accordingly to human social and affective clues. This ability can be exploited implementing affective computing, which concerns the development of systems able to recognize, interpret, process, and simulate human affects. Social intelligence is essential for robots to establish a natural interaction with people in several contexts, including the manufacturing sector with the emergence of Industry 5.0. In order to take full advantage of the human-robot collaboration, the robotic system should be able to perceive the psycho-emotional and mental state of the operator through different sensing modalities (e.g., facial expressions, body language, voice, or physiological signals) and to adapt its behaviour accordingly. The development of socially intelligent collaborative robots in the manufacturing sector can lead to a symbiotic human-robot collaboration, arising several research challenges that still need to be addressed. The goals of this paper are the following: (i) providing an overview of affective computing implementation in HRI; (ii) analyzing the state-of-art on this topic in different application contexts (e.g., healthcare, service applications, and manufacturing); (iii) highlighting research challenges for the manufacturing sector