Symbiotic approaches to work and technology

Production Planning;production

Organizational concepts and interaction between humans and robots in industrial environments

This paper is discussing the intuitive interaction with robotic systems and the conceptualisation connected with known organisational problems. In particular, the focus will be on the manufacturing industry with respect to its social dimension. One of the aims is to identify relevant research questions about the possibility of development of safer robot systems in closer human-machine intuitive interaction systems at the manufacturing shop-floor level. We try to contribute to minimize the cognitive and perceptual workload for robot operators in complex working systems. In particular that will be highly relevant when more different robots with different roles and produced by different companies or designers are to be used in the manufacturing industry to a larger extent. The social sciences approach to such technology assessment is of high relevance to understand the dimensions of the intuitive interaction concept

Intelligent documentation as a catalyst for developing cooperative knowledge-based systems

In the long run, the development of cooperative knowledge-based systems for complex real world domains such as production planning in mechanical engineering should yield significant economic returns. However, large investments have already been made into the conventional technology. Intelligent documentation, which abstracts the current practice of the industry, is suggested as a stepping stone for developing such knowledge-based systems. A set of coordinated knowledge acquisition tools has been developed by which intelligent documents are constructed as an intermediate product, which by itself is already useful. Within the frame of the conventional technology, the task- and domain specific hypertext structures allow the reuse of production plans while simultaneously starting the development process for knowledge based systems

Break, Make, Retake: Interrogating the Social and Historical Dimensions of Making as a Design Practice

Making and digital fabrication technologies are the focus of bold promises. Among the most tempting are that these activities and processes require little initial skill, knowledge, and expertise. Instead, they enable their acquisition, opening them up to everyone. Makerspaces and fab labs would blur the identities between professional and amateur, designer and engineer, maker and hacker, ushering in a broad-based de-professionalization. Prototyping and digital fabrication would unite design and manufacturing in ways that resemble and revive traditional craftwork. These activities and processes promise the reindustrialization of places where manufacturing has disappeared. These promises deploy historical categories and conditionsexpertise, design, craft production, manufacturing, post- industrial urbanismwhile claiming to transform them. This dissertation demonstrates how these proposals and narratives rely on imaginaries in which countercultural practices become mainstream by presenting a threefold argument. First, making and digital fabrication sustain supportive environments that reconfigure contemporary design practice. Second, making and digital fabrication simultaneously reshape the categories of professional, amateur, work, leisure, and expertise; but not always in the ways its proponents suggest. Third, as making and digital fabrication propagate, they reproduce traditional practices and values, negating much of their countercultural and alternative capacities. The dissertation supports these claims through a multi-sited and multinational ethnographic investigation of the historical and social effects of making and digital fabrication on design practice and the people and places enacting. The study lies at the intersection of science and technology studies, human-computer interaction, and design research. In addressing the argument throughout this scholarship, it explores three central themes: (1) the idea that making and digital fabrication lead to instant materialization of design while re-uniting design with manufacturing; (2) the amount of skill and expertise expected for participation in these practices and how these are encoded in rhetoric and in practice; and (3) the material and social infrastructures that configure making as a design practice. The dissertation demonstrates that that the perceived marginality of making, maker cultures, digital fabrication allows for its bolder promises to thrive invisibly by concealing other social issues, while the societal contributions of this technoculture say something different on the surface

Prototyping learning and congruence in new realities

The educational system in the industrialized 20th Century, a monolithic delivery model, prepared students for a hierarchical livelihood in either blue collar or white collar worlds. Today, a different landscape is predicted for the workforce. And it is rapidly changing and advancing. Will Richardson points out that by 2020 more than half the US workforce will be “freelancers, consultants and independent workers” (Richardson, 2012). While forecasts and predictions vary, continuing studies support this workforce evolution. The continued revolution in digital technology is pervasive today with mobile devices and the Internet providing an abundance of information, knowledge and opportunity with the potential for a student customized learning experience. Anticipating this shift, Richardson recognizes the need for students to master learning instead of content as is assessed currently. This situates well with John Seely Brown describing “agency” as active participation, creating and building as a principal attribute of a student in this new educational model while inscribing “empathy” as a second requisite quality (Brown, 2013). A new strategy for learning, understanding and doing is required that encourages agency with individuals actively experiencing new technologies and realities for creating and communicating that support deeper experiences and shift perspectives in ways not possible before. This is required to imbue discovery, creativity and new craft toward the most appropriately designed solutions in a highly technological and evermore complex world. Universal Constructs, with new tools for seeing and making, become the framework to weave design thinking, STEM and 21st Century Skills together holistically to better define the potentials for learning, understanding and doing. A pilot program called the Forward Learning Experience (FLEx) was launched in 2014 with the intention to introduce the framework above to students today. As of July 2017, the FLEx has reached almost 45,000 constituents of Iowa, primarily K-12 students, and has undergone initial reviews with positive results showing its potential capacities toward a new educational and learning model. Leading students with forward looking experiences, strategies and frameworks through the FLEx or similar opportunities to augment core skills through emergent technologies for seeing and making through robust multi-mode neuro-phenomenological means will enable a new calculus for deeper learning, understanding and impactful doing with extended imagination, empathy and ethics

New Manufacturing Environments with Micro- and Nanorobotics

UIDB/04647/2020 UIDP/04647/2020The convergence of nano-, bio-, information, and cognitive sciences and technologies (NBIC) is advancing continuously in many societal spheres. This also applies to the manufacturing sector, where technological transformations in robotics push the boundaries of human–machine interaction (HMI). Here, current technological advances in micro- and nanomanufacturing are accompanied by new socio-economic concepts for different sectors of the process industry. Although these developments are still ongoing, the blurring of the boundaries of HMI in processes at the micro- and nano- level can already be observed. According to the authors, these new socio-technical HMIs may lead to the development of new work environments, which can also have an impact on work organization. While there is still little empirical evidence, the following contribution focuses on the question whether the “manufacturing (or working) life” using enhancement practices pushes the boundaries of HMI and how these effects enable new modes of working in manufacturing. Issues of standardization, acceleration of processes, and order-oriented production become essential for technological innovation in this field. However, these trends tend to lead to a “manufacturing life” in work environments rather than to new modes of work in industry.publishersversionepub_ahead_of_prin

Smart Manufacturing Technology Adoption for Improving Productivity: A Systematic Literature Review

This paper is to present a review of the Smart manufacturing application as Industry 4.0, specifically on the conceptual approaches to define it. Two conceptual approaches to the application of the concept of smart manufacturing are distinguished. The method using the previous articles of scientific journals from 2017-2022 (thirty-two international paper) were selected based on previous works, with the scope to investigate and analyze in-depth the extent to which literature used to discuss results in the selected studies of applying the Smart Manufacturing Technology in manufacture enterprises. The results of the previous studies are discussed and investigated in a table format