Computer-Aided Selection of Participatory Design Methods

Abstract

The activities to introduce Industry 4.0 and Digitalization into manufacturing environments imply a multitude of new systems and technologies which change work environments and tasks that are existing there up to now. In order to cope with the increasing complexity, employees in production must be transferred into knowledge workers. This requires new approaches of work organization, training and education, and the active involvement of employees in shaping future workplaces and processes. To achieve these goals new approaches and methods for collaborative design and reorganization of workplaces and processes involving employees by means of participatory design need to be developed and implemented. Due to the large number of available methods, targeted support for the workers is required for selecting suitable methods. In this paper, the motivation and reasons to use participatory design are explained, an approach to support method selection is developed, and a computer-aided selection procedure for empowering the responsible persons on the shop floors is presented. Following, this is the basis for applications in an industrial context, where the solution can be validated and improved based on practical experiences.