Enabling new forms of work organization on the shop floor through technology-driven innovation

Abstract

The Digital Transformation and Industry 4.0 change production work in a holistic and disruptive nature. Most industrial challenges highlight technological aspects since Industry 4.0 is emphasizing on beyond the frontier technology. They revealed the need for organizational changes as well as influences on the human factor. For instance, the employment of assistance systems to support workers on the shop floor allow new information flows by overcoming existing barriers such as hierarchy or distances. Thus, there are not only technological but also more comprehensive implications on work induced by identified use cases. This paper presents few implemented use cases in which technologies optimize or enable new organizational facets to pave the way for new forms of work organization. Building on these use cases, superordinate work organization design principles are discussed.