This paper provides an overview of collaborative robotics towards manufacturing applications. Over the last decade, the market has seen the introduction of a new category of robots—collaborative robots (or “cobots”)—designed to physically interact with humans in a shared environment, without the typical barriers or protective cages used in traditional robotics systems. Their potential is undisputed, especially regarding their flexible ability to make simple, quick, and cheap layout changes; however, it is necessary to have adequate knowledge of their correct uses and characteristics to obtain the advantages of this form of robotics, which can be a barrier for industry uptake. The paper starts with an introduction of human–robot collaboration, presenting the related standards and modes of operation. An extensive literature review of works published in this area is undertaken, with particular attention to the main industrial cases of application. The paper concludes with an analysis of the future trends in human–robot collaboration as determined by the authors.

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Assembly system design defines proper configurations and efficient management strategies to maximize the assembly system performances. Beyond assembly line balancing and scheduling, several other dimensions of this problem have to be considered. Furthermore, the assembly system design has to consider the industrial environment in which the system operates. The latest industrial revolution, namely Industry 4.0, leverages Internet connected and sensorized machines to manufacture customer-designed products. This paper proposes an original framework which investigates the impact of Industry 4.0 principles on assembly system design. The traditional dimensions of this problem are described along with the industrial environment evolution over the last three centuries. Concerning the latest industrial revolution, the technology innovations which enabled the manufacturing process digitalization are presented. The application of these enabling technologies to the assembly domain results in a new generation of assembly systems, the here defined assembly system 4.0. Finally, the distinctive characteristics of these novel systems are proposed and described in detail