Collaboration and Co-creation in Industry 5.0: User-engagement with industrial operators through co-creation workshops

Abstract

Industry 5.0 is characterized by human-centric designs and solutions. This implies that the creation and implementation of new technologies in industrial tasks should involve and engage the workforce at every stage of development. An effective method of workforce engagement are co-creation workshops - collaborative sessions designed to understand the needs and preferences of the end-users of new technology. Operator engagement through such workshops can provide valuable feedback for the design of new technology as well as boost operators’ acceptance of the new smart production systems. The following paper presents the methodology and findings from co-creation workshops conducted by the EU-funded project “CONVERGING”, in four use cases with factory operators. The workshops enforced a three-step protocol combining discussions and hands-on design tasks with the industrial operators. The workshops aimed to capture the operators’ experiences with the current task, expectations from smart assistive technologies, and their opinions on the CONVERGING solutions. The findings that emerged from the workshops are discussed for each use-case.

Keywords: Industry 5.0, Human-Robot Collaboration, User-Centred Design

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1005168