Sustainable Move towards Flexible, Robotic, Human-Involving Workplace

Abstract

The realisation of the ideas of smart factories and sustainable manufacturing can be quickly realised in companies where industrial production is high-volume, low-mix. However, it is more difficult to follow trends toward industry 4.0 in craft industries such as tooling. This kind of work environment is a challenge for the deployment of sustainability and smart technologies because many stages involve the so-called “manual processing according to the worker’s feeling and experience.” With the help of literature review and testing in the production environment, we approach the design of a procedure for planning a sustainable technological upgrade of craft production. The best method proved to be a combination of a maturity model, process mapping with flowcharts, critical analysis, and customised evaluation model. Workplace flexibility, as a move towards sustainability, is presented in a laboratory environment on screwing performed by human wearing HoloLens and collaborative robot.

Exploring the status of the human operator in Industry 4.0: A systematic review

“…Therefore, in light of our first research question (RQ1), the technological components described in Table 3 are what allow the main principles of I4.0 to be outlined: interoperability, real-time access to data, virtualization, decentralized decision-making, and demand/service-oriented production (Santos et al, 2017 ). Generally speaking, people, machine, equipment, logistics systems and components are expected to communicate and cooperate with each other as these factories become adaptable and flexible (Iordache, 2017 ; Gray-Hawkins et al, 2019 ; Gajšek et al, 2020 ). Following this perspective and in contrast to previous work scenarios, new forms of human-machine interaction are supposed to assist workers safely and efficiently, in a diverse range of environments and tasks, even when these are highly dynamic and uncertain (Richert et al, 2016a ).…”

“…According to Gajšek et al ( 2020 ), the increase in flexibility will give workers the opportunity to adapt their own working equipment to work demands through their choices when handling these components. For these reasons, in line with what Thun et al ( 2019 ) expressed, I4.0 will change work from being repetitive, low-skilled and physical, to that involving more complex and cognitive tasks, as decentralized decision-making provides a greater degree of autonomy for workers.…”

“…From a more macro point of view, the reconfiguration of the labor market and the forms of work organization brought by I4.0 carries threats to the social sustainability of work. The possible increase in unemployment, digital exclusion, and the unequal distribution of work are some of the threats which have been stressed (Howcroft and Rubery, 2019 ; Gajšek et al, 2020 ; Saabye et al, 2020 ; Saniuk et al, 2020 ; Rangraz and Pareto, 2021 ). Saniuk et al ( 2020 ) mentioned some other employment-related risks, such as a mismatch between workers' skills and what these new (or reconfigured) jobs demand.…”

“…. system efficiency assessment) Richert et al, 2016a;Gregor et al, 2017;Iordache, 2017;Lee et al, 2017;Santos et al, 2017;Badri et al, 2018;Um et al, 2018;Gray-Hawkins et al, 2019;Hamdi et al, 2019;Kumar and Kumar, 2019;Madonna et al, 2019;Ahmad et al, 2020;Blštáková et al, 2020;Brozzi et al, 2020;Cimini et al, 2020;Gajšek et al, 2020;Gazzaneo et al, 2020;Longo et al, 2020;Miśkiewicz and Wolniak, 2020;Ramadan et al, 2020;Berrah et al, 2021;Çinar et al, 2021;El-Haouzi et al, 2021;Rupp et al, 2021;Stawiarska et al, 2021 1.2. I4.0 technologies were described through case studies on specific components, which included both implementation and trial studies, as well as their expected outcomes and limits.…”

“…Richert et al, 2016b;Kolbeinsson et al, 2017;Langfinger et al, 2017;Thomay et al, 2018;Ivaschenko et al, 2019;Minnetti et al, 2019;Pavel et al, 2019;Baldissone et al, 2020;Digiesi et al, 2020;Fruggiero et al, 2020;Gualtieri et al, 2020;Kadir and Broberg, 2020;Santo et al, 2020;Shi et al, 2020;Van Acker et al, 2020;Agnusdei et al, 2021. RQ2: How is the play in these contexts. Kolbeinsson et al, 2017;Marrella and Mecella, 2017;Schloegl et al, 2017;Badri et al, 2018;Mark et al, 2019;Thun et al, 2019;Udayangani et al, 2019;Ahmad et al, 2020;Blštáková et al, 2020;Broday, 2020;Cimini et al, 2020;Gajšek et al, 2020;Gazzaneo et al, 2020;Gualtieri et al, 2020;Hoyer et al, 2020;Kaasinen et al, 2020;Broberg, 2020, 2021;Longo et al, 2020;Saabye et al, 2020;Sony and Naik, 2020;Chistyakova et al, 2021;Di Carlo et al, 2021;Golsch and Seegers, 2021;Ivaldi et al, 2021;…”