Autor: Sebastian Schlund

The rehumanization of industrial work has emerged as a key focus in Industry 4.0 research, emphasizing the empowerment of human workers amidst advancing automation. Within this re-search, supporting workers with disabilities through digital assistance technologies serves as a prime example of a human-centric approach to industrial engineering. These technologies often claim to enhance productivity, which aims to promote the integration of workers with disabili-ties in industrial roles. But can they genuinely improve their work experience? This ethnograph-ic study presents insights from two years of developing and deploying augmented reality in a sheltered woodworking workshop. Over this period, we engaged in conversations and facilitat-ed over 30 technology sessions with workers with diverse disabilities. Our experiences chal-lenge the narrative of industrial research, in particular with digital instructional systems serving as “enabler technology” to help them work “better.” ...

The decarbonization of the energy sector is crucial for a climate-neutral EU, as a large proportion of greenhouse gas emissions come from energy use. Especially the wind energy sector, with its high material costs, faces major challenges. The rapid expansion of wind energy requires innovative solutions to establish sustainable End-of-Life (EoL) management practices. A digital decision-making framework for sustainable EoL strategies is therefore extremely useful.

Adaptation of work to humans instead of humans constantly adapting to work systems and work environments has been a goal of ergonomics since the 19th century. To date, an actual adaptation of work to the specific features, conditions and requirements of individual users has so far only taken place in rudimentary form. The possibilities have now opened up by the advances of Cyber Physical Production Systems (CPPS). This enables a renewed attempt to implement the goal of adapting work systems to workers. Integration of advanced sensory skills into work systems within manufacturing allows better recognition of the work environment and the actual state of the system. Together with actuator capabilities, it enables adaptive work systems to adjust their structure and behaviour to the anthropometric and the cognitive features and requirements of the systems’ users. However, a framework that integrates the concepts of adaptivity and personalization into the work system model and work system ...