In the public domain, Industry 4.0 is often viewed as a purely technical subject. Yet essential elements of the concept also relate to new social infrastructures, empowering people to play key roles in Smart Factories.
The debate surrounding Industry 4.0 concentrates primarily on the technical aspects. Yet Smart Factories will also entail major impacts on the people who work in them. “There will be no deserted factories, without a human being in sight,” asserts Prof. Dr Sascha Stowasser, Director of the Institute for Applied Work Study in Düsseldorf. He stresses, however, that “tomorrow’s world of work will change due to the implementation of interconnected systems”. He believes work and work organisation are not being discussed enough in relation to Industry 4.0. That is also causing concern among employee representatives: will people be merely left with minor tasks, controlled by computers in cyber-physical systems? Not that the trade unions reject Industry 4.0. But Jörg Hofmann, Vice-Chairman of the IG Metall metalworkers’ union, sets out one particular demand: “We need a fresh start in terms of labour policy. There has to be a humanisation drive, whereby people control systems, and not the other way round.”
The people are the most flexible element
The prospects are very bright. As opposed to the CIM (Computer Integrated Manufacturing) concept of the late 1980s, people play a key role in Industry 4.0: they will be the controlling, executive and supervising instances within the business. Because the people are still the most flexible element in production processes.
Correctly implemented, Industry 4.0 will not make people superfluous, but rather will expand their range of work skills, and so enhance their qualification profiles. Here’s an example: the connectivity and increasing autonomy of cyber-physical systems will mean that conventional control consoles or production planning systems will become less relevant. On the other hand, the staff working on the shopfloor, on the machines, will be empowered to make more decisions. They will obtain the necessary product and process information to do so from assistance systems.
Knowledge work instead of drudgery
A phrase also used in this context is “knowledge work”. Knowledge work has nothing to do with the conventional automated routine tasks of factory working. It is characterised by an entirely new-style, complex and autonomous work environment. “We have to investigate how people work and learn, how they interact with new technologies, and how they can generate added value for industry based on an attractive and challenging production workplace,” explains Martin Wifling from the Virtual Vehicle Research Center in Graz, Austria. He heads a European research project investigating how factory jobs can be made more attractive and designed more intelligently in future.
Placing people at the focal point of the Smart Factory is well worthwhile: responding to people’s needs and wishes within the manufacturing process can enhance the satisfaction levels and motivation of production employees. This can bring overall increases in productivity of up to 10 percent. The main focus of the research project, however, lies primarily in “making manufacturing jobs in Europe much more attractive, so that more people choose this challenging and varied career path”, as Wifling puts it.
A better workplace
Interaction with intelligent machines and increasing automation also offers a number of opportunities to enhance the quality of the workplace, such as making it more flexible, introducing new working time provisions, and improving health and safety at work. At the same time, however, education and training must adapt to Industry 4.0. Jeanne Beliveau-Dunn, Vice President and General Manager, Learning@Cisco: “Employees need to be adapting now to the changing demands of their job. Demand for skilled staff capable of working with IT networks and conventional control systems is rising.”
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