Preparing for Industrial Collaborative Robots: A Literature Review of Technology Readiness and Acceptance Models

This item is only available electronically.Collaborative robots (cobots) are an emerging technology that are increasingly being introduced into organisations. However, research investigating employee attitudes towards, or assessment of factors predicting acceptance of cobots is limited. A literature review was conducted to identify reliable and parsimonious models of technology acceptance that would hold relevance when applied to cobots. Understanding and facilitating employee acceptance of such technology is important if the improved productivity, job satisfaction and cost savings associated with its implementation are to be achieved. The Technology Readiness Index (Parasuraman, 2000) and Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989) were considered most appropriate as a starting point to empirically explore cobot acceptance.Thesis (M.Psych(Organisational & Human Factors)) -- University of Adelaide, School of Psychology, 201

Integrating personal learning and working environments

This review paper part of a series of papers commissioned by the Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwick under the title of 'Beyond Current Horizons – Working and Employment Challenge'. In turn, in forms part of a larger programme of work under the banner of Beyond Current Horizons that is being managed by FutureLab on behalf of the UK Department for Schools, Children and Families. The brief was to cover: - The main trends and issues in the area concerned; - Any possible discontinuities looking forward to 2025 and beyond; - Uncertainties and any big tensions; - Conclusions on what the key issues will be in the future and initial reflections on any general implications for education. Given the wide ranging nature of the brief, this paper largely confines itself to trends and issues in the UK, although where appropriate examples from other countries in Europe are introduced. We realise that in an age of growing globalisation the future of work and learning in the UK cannot be separated from developments elsewhere and that developments in other parts of the world may present a different momentum and trajectory from that in the UK. Thus, when reading this report, please bear in mind the limitations in our approach

Future touch in industry: exploring sociotechnical imaginaries of tactile (tele)robots

This paper explores sociotechnical imaginaries for industrial robotics. It is motivated by the prospect of promoting human-centred industrial futures. Investigating the tactility of labour through a critical social perspective the research attends to the future of tactile (tele)robots and elaborates on the concepts of pedagogic, collaborative and superhuman touch. These concepts are offered as starting points to foster productive dialogues between social scientists, roboticists, environmentalists, policy makers, industrial leaders and labourers (e.g. union representatives). This paper is framed through literature and ethnographic fieldwork that contextualises and maps the dominant sociotechnical imaginaries for a future touch in industry, identifying the role of a comparative-competitive frame in sustaining a splintering of the imaginary towards utopic and dystopic extremes. Against this, the paper draws on interviews with leading roboticists to chart alternative futures where humans and robots may work together as collaborators, not competitors

Can robots possess knowledge? : Rethinking the DIK(W) pyramid through the lens of employees of an automotive factory

Knowledge, information, and data are increasingly processed in human–robot collaboration. This study tackles two requirements for revising the concepts of knowledge, information, and data. First is developing robots’ knowledge capabilities and transparency and ensuring effective division of tasks between humans and robots to increase the productivity of robotised factories. Employees’ interpretations of robots’ abilities to possess knowledge reveal their assumptions of robots’ possibilities and limitations to create knowledge-based products with humans. Second, the classic DIK(W) pyramid of data, information, knowledge, and wisdom is a theoretical construct requiring additional empirical research. This empirical exploratory study develops the DIK(W) further and applies it as a tool to understand employees’ perspectives of robots and knowledge. Do people believe robots possess knowledge? What kind of knowledge can (or cannot) robots possess? A survey (n = 269) was collected from the most robotised factory in Finland, Valmet Automotive. Half of the respondents think robots can possess knowledge, but only with humans. These respondents were more likely to trust robots compared to those who think robots cannot possess knowledge. As the key contribution, the DIK(W) pyramid is reconceived by (i) acknowledging robots and humans, (ii) turning the pyramid upside down, and (iii) recognising knowledge as a dividing concept.© The Author(s) 2021. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing,adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visithttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.I thank Olli Nevalainen for collecting the survey. The research was funded by the Academy of Finland, project nr. 319872 Second Machine Age Knowledge Co-Creation Processes in Space and Time.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Prosocial behavior among human workers in robot-augmented production teams : a field-in-the-lab experiment

Human-machine interaction has raised a lot of interest in various academic disciplines, but it is still unclear how human-human interaction is affected when robots join the team. Robotics has already been integral to manufacturing since the 1970s. With the integration of AI, however, they are increasingly working alongside humans in shared spaces. We conducted an experiment in a learning factory to investigate how a change from a human-human work context to a hybrid human-robot work context affects participants\u27 valuation of their production output as well as their pro-sociality among each other. Learning factories are learning, teaching, and research environments in engineering university departments. These factory environments allow control over the production environment and incentives for participants. Our experiment suggests that the robot\u27s presence increases sharing behavior among human workers, but there is no evidence that rewards earned from production are valued differently. We discuss the implications of this approach for future studies on human-machine interaction

Industrial robot ethics: facing the challenges of human-robot collaboration in future manufacturing systems

As a result of significant advances in information and communications technology the manufacturing industry is facing revolutionary changes whereby production processes will become increasingly digitised and interconnected cyber-physical systems. A key component of these new complex systems will be intelligent automation and human-robot collaboration. Industrial robots have traditionally been segregated from people in manufacturing systems because of the dangers posed by their operational speeds and heavy payloads. However, advances in technology mean that we will soon see large-scale robots being deployed to work more closely and collaboratively with people in monitored manufacturing sytems and widespread introduction of small-scale robots and assistive robotic devices. This will not only transform the way people are expected to work and interact with automation but will also involve much more data provision and capture for performance monitoring. This paper discusses the background to these developments and the anticipated ethical issues that we now face as people and robots become able to work collaboratively in industry