The modern manufacturing world has shifted its focus to further increasing automation. Advanced workplaces are replacing existing stations. Moreover, human-machine collaboration has taken a leap, placing human operators in the centre of attention. In the past, people were expected to adapt to machine requirements. Now, automation systems are being designed and developed so that they can recognise the users, remember their capabilities, skills and preferences, and adapt accordingly. Humans and automation are therefore taking advantage of each other’s strengths, having a symbiotic relationship for enhancing the capabilities, skills and quality of their work. The expected result should be more flexible, inclusive and safe workplaces, as well as better work conditions and increased productivity and improved quality. But, above all, this would mean increased worker satisfaction and work well-being, more empowered and engaged workers and increased interest towards factory work.
Future manufacturing will be characterized by the complementarity between humans and automation, especially regarding the production of highly customizable products. This requires new methods and tools for the design and operation of optimized manufacturing workplaces in terms of ergonomics, safety, efficiency, complexity management and work satisfaction. The MANUWORK project sits at the core of this cooperative mission, developing technologies and systems to support the design and operation of manufacturing workplaces that support human collaboration with other operators and machines.
MANUWORK supports the design and operation of human-centered manufacturing that is based on the human-automation symbiosis. In this paradigm the operators feel empowered and in control of their workstation while at the same time the system adapts in order to compensate for operators’ limitations (skills, knowledge, disabilities), thus ensuring a socially sustainable working environment without compromising production targets.
MANUWORK has focused on the development of an integrated platform for the management of manufacturing workplaces of the future. This will be done through development, implementation, integration and testing of the following technological components:
1. Tools for determining optimal human-automation levels for load balancing, based on methods for the assessment of physical, sensorial and cognitive capabilities of humans, the prediction of evolution of human skills/capabilities and the modelling of automation skills.
2. Framework for the evaluation of worker satisfaction, safety and health, based on methods for evaluating psychometrics and socio-organizational parameters and the safe human-automation symbiosis.
3. An Industrial Social Networking (ISN) platform and methods for knowledge capturing and social analytics which will be used for knowledge capturing, networking, guidance and decision support.
4. Augmented Reality (AR) technology to support operators through training and instructions visualization in the shop-floor.
