Operator 4.0: A human Perspective of Industry 4.0

Abstract

Operators play a vital role in any manufacturing setting. They are an essential part of the workforce behind all manufactured goods in the market today. Recent technological advancements in such revolutionized industry, i.e., Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0), have brought much attention to the interaction and application between tools and operators. For example, exploring the nine technological pillars, such as Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Collaborative Robots, Cyber Physical Systems, etc., has been investigated widely in different use case scenarios. Never before has there been more attention to the influence of technology over industrial and manufacturing exercise and implementation. However, the current view of Industry 4.0, its scope and application, are young and heavily prevalent from a technical and technological perspective. This one-sided perspective respectively impacts the views on the workforce and the operator in Industry 4.0 environments. There is an acute need to balance such a technology-driven focus of the industry with a better level of human inclusiveness and considerations, especially at the workforce and operator scale. In this context, a novel approach that represents two redefined and updated concepts of the human perspective for Industry 4.0 is proposed. First, Human Capital 4.0 integrates future-proof attributes that will support the workforce at its best in the advents of Industry 4.0. Second, the new view of Operator 4.0 is an assembly of factors found throughout the research to provide a perspective that best advocates a human-centered approach for Industry 4.0. This research aims to facilitate theoretical methodology that provides principled explanations and practical models for human-based and worker-centric inclusion into Industry 4.0. A systematic development method for the new version of Operator 4.0 is presented based on different workforce implications, i.e. role interactions, capabilities, and skill cooperation. These aspects were explored and analyzed with a straightforward human approach, i.e. a worker-centric perspective. Therefore, the updated version of the operator highlights the job implications to the manufacturing worker due to recent technological implementations. Moreover, the proposed overview of Operator 4.0 is complemented by three important attributes found necessary for human capital in advents of Industry 4.0, such as wellbeing, holistic competence, and holistic preparation. The representation for wellbeing is elaborated to seek equilibrium between existing challenges in the industry and the needed resources of the workforce. The model for holistic competence is developed to support and enhance human capital not only at the technical side but, more essentially, at the human side. The model for holistic preparation is designed to embrace a human-centered approach and a holistic competence for workforce development. A method of application was derived from this model to tackle some of the contemporary challenges affecting the workforce. For example, such models and method developed in this study could be utilized by personnel of human resource department, as the end-user, when training and upskilling their colleagues in a company. This company should consider the key competences and attributes presented in this research work as part of their core strategy for labor culture and human capital development. As per future work, this thesis lays down the ground for two things primarily. First, the research, coherence, and merged of these new or updated concepts (Human Capital 4.0 and Operator 4.0) to the idea of Industry 5.0 that recently emerged in Europe. Second, a step-by-step manual of implementation of these presented frameworks to the different management levels of a company.