Up-Skilling for Industry 5.0 Roll-Out

Project Information

Up-Skill

Grant agreement ID: 101070666

DOI

10.3030/101070666

Project closed

EC signature date 27 June 2022

Start date 1 September 2022

End date 28 February 2026

Funded under

• Digital, Industry and Space

Total cost

€ 2 948 250,25

EU contribution

€ 2 948 250,25

Coordinated by

MALARDALENS UNIVERSITET
Sweden

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Up-Skill (Up-Skilling for Industry 5.0 Roll-Out)

Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2024-02-29

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

At the core of the Up-Skill project is the recognition that Industry 4.0 the application of digital technologies to industrial processes, production management and supply chains, as presently configured, is a potential threat as well as a benefit to the social and economic wellbeing of Europe.
Another key issue for European skills is the loss of essential craft skills. Despite the wide applicability of robots, automation and computer-controlled machines, there are limits to what automation and robotics can achieve.
The Up-Skill project to identify potential routes for a shift toward more human-centric, sustainable and resilient production – what has been termed Industry 5.0. Our main focus is on human-centricity – examining how digital technology deployment can be encouraged toward improving and up-skilling work rather than replacing and de-skilling it.

The research rationale is that the introduction of these new technologies will cause disturbances in the sociomaterial fabric comprising the firms (identifiable primarily through new and changing roles and distributions of responsibility), effects which can then be followed by the ethnographers. The ethnographers are focusing on how different technology choices create knock-on effects in existing roles and the creation of new roles, the focus on new innovation and management practice and other practices. Of particular interest are management practices that reflect the I5.0 ethic and how these practices are entangled in, and with, other organizational practices, skills, economic conditions, finances, cultures and changing technology.
As the project progresses, we will assess the degree to which I5.0 practices are present and emerging (or even flourishing!) within the cases, using a I5.0 state of readiness tool we are developing. From this assessment, and drawing on insights and examples from the ethnographic work, we will also begin to design and create training materials for managers. These materials will be aimed at promoting the I5.0 ethic. The project will also draw together all of the case study materials (including insights from the technology implementation and support, insights from the state of readiness tool and the developed training materials onto a single platform, the Up-Skill platform. The platform will ultimately contain hundreds of thousands of words of text and many images – including hand drawn images by our project artist. In order to make this material accessible to anyone, the platform is being designed to be interrogatable via an AI-driven interface. This intelligent interface will collate materials and insights in response to open and pre-set queries - saving the inquirer hours in the process.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

DELIVERABLES

D1.1 – State of the art literature review. Completed.
D1.2 – Ethnographic framework report. Completed.
D2.1 – Individual case study reports. Completed.
D3.1 – Report showing the best practice technology solutions selected. Completed.
D3.2 – Installed hardware for trial manufacture. Completed.
D4.1 – Training requirements report. Completed.
D5.1 – Design and requirements specification for data capture and representation. Completed.
D6.1 – Up-Skill project website. Completed.
D6.2 – Project Videos 1 - This is done(M6) with the addition of a second shorter video. Completed.
D6.4 – PDEC - Plan for the dissemination exploitation and communication activities 1. Completed.
D7.1 – Data management plan. Completed.
Ethics (not listed as a deliverable) – Completed and approved by the external.

PROGRESS AGAINST WPs

At the core of the project is the ethnographic work (WP2 – ARU, LU, UMIL) collecting field data on each of the case companies. Data from WP2 informs insights for policy makers and academics and is already leading to a series of academic outputs and engagements. The outputs from this work package also flow into the management training (WP4) and to WP5 to form the Up Skill platform.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

1. Values are important
Technology adoption decisions are strategic, economic and rational decisions of course – but they are also, as we have been discovering, values-based decisions. This provides a space for potential cultural change toward Industry 5.0. We have found that not all owners and managers want to replace their workers with automation – even if they can and costs are not prohibitive.
2. Industry 5.0 is a mindset – not a set of technologies or techniques
Industry 4.0 can be characterized as both a particular managerial mindset and economic model. Industry 5.0 by contrast, is a managerial mind-set and economic model in which workers are viewed very differently.
3. Industry 5.0 cannot come after industry 4.0.
Industry 5.0. as it is presently formulated, presents itself as the next stage of development – such as a move on from the acceleration and intensification underpinned by industry 4.0 toward a more worker-centric application of technology. Industry 5.0 thinking must come before, and have a shaping influence on, the adoption of industry 4.0. technology.
4. The inseparability of augmentation and automation
It became clear as the project has progressed that augmentation and automation are not always easy to disentangle from one another.
5. Data are difficult
The iconic image of industry 4.0 is of data flowing seamlessly around production systems, mobilizing robots and providing real-time information to managers and remaining workers. The Up-Skill project has found that accurate data is remarkably difficult to get.
6. Skills shortages are a driver of automation.
The narrative driving much research funding and policy thinking is the problem of skills shortages – particularly digital skills. Lack of skills is the most highly-cited reason for firms not investing in digital technology. However, there is also an inverse to this. Many firms in Europe are struggling to recruit and train the skilled manual workers that they need to perform essential ‘non-digital’ tasks.
7. Breaking new ground in methodology.
A crucial contribution of Up-Skill to the research community is a return and maintenance of and development of research skills in industrial workplace ethnography. Longitudinal workplace ethnographic studies, due in part to the nature of funding, the pressure to publish and the evolving nature of academic career trajectories, are becoming increasingly rare (Barley, 2020).
8. Strange Mixed Ecologies
We have developed this concept as a way of making sense of the research sites we have been encountering. We find that, far from the transformation of industry through the application of industry 4.0 we find mixed environments of old machines (some dating back to the 1950s) sitting next 3D digital printers, robots working within sight of workers still grinding and cleaning components by hand.
9. New theoretical insights in organizational theory: Organization 5.0
Through the project we have begun to develop a new way of thinking about organizations. Industry 4.0 in emphasizing transformation and renewal, pays little or no attention to the negative impacts of this on the consumption of resources or the consequences of accelerated uninterrupted production on working lives. It is no coincidence that a mental-health crisis in the west has accompanied the diffusion of digital technology to all areas of work. Industry 5.0 in seeking to offset the negative impacts of industry 4.0 must lead the way in new forms of organizing within and beyond industry.

Up-Skill Methodology summary

Up-Skill WP structure