Empowering and Engaging Solutions for Operator 4.0 – Acceptance and Foreseen Impacts by Factory Workers

Industry 4.0 factories require smart and skilled operators - Operators 4.0. We evaluated three Operator 4.0 solutions that aim to empower and engage workers, so that workers can understand and develop their own competences and they can take an active role in developing the manufacturing environment. 118 shop stewards from different factories assessed user experience, user acceptance and foreseen impacts of the solutions. The results show that there are high expectations towards the virtual factory-based participatory design solution. Opinions were shared about empowering the worker by feedback about worker well-being and work achievements. The solution was seen interesting and useful but there were doubts regarding privacy. Contextual knowledge sharing was felt important but the workers were a bit skeptical as many previous knowledge sharing attempts had been failed. The results give insight to how the solutions should be further developed and how the solutions should be introduced at factory floor.