TABLE 2.
Categorisation of statements.
| Physical | ||
|---|---|---|
| Subcategory | Risk | Opportunity |
| Physical alteration of the workplace | - Close human robot collaboration evokes safety concerns | |
| - Residual risk/unreliability cannot be eliminated completely | - A [robot] cannot always avoid colliding with humans. Safety sensors reduce the force of impacts and stop the robot movement when bumping into a human, but the residual risk remains | |
| - Some operators experience mental stress because of safety concerns during close collaboration with robotic systems | - Robots can help compensate physical limitation of human workers | |
| - […] | ||
| - “Ergonomic improvement, increase of occupational safety” | ||
| - “Less physical load as a result of which in an older age you have fewer complaints or would never get worse from them” | ||
| - “Combining human and robot safety at work and detection of border pieces” | - “Less suffering joints and muscles” | |
| - “Space around the machine, weight of the products” | - “No more heavy physical work” | |
| - “More space by the machine” (room) | - “Preservation of your physical condition. Less physical complaints” | |
| - “Protection of body and psyche” | ||
| - […] | ||
| Psychosocial | ||
| Function allocation | - “Multiple machines save more time” | |
| Task design | - “Facilitate/simplify the work” | |
| - “Less repetitive work and therefore less work pressure” | ||
| - “Makes work more interesting” | ||
| - “More time left for maintenance and other important things” | ||
| - “Setting up the robot cost time in the beginning, but later you benefit from it because the programs already exist and you can therefore do other things” | ||
| - […] | ||
| Ambiguous (Task design or Function allocation) | - Robots and collaborative robots can perform easy, repetitive, monotonous and straining manual tasks (dull tasks) instead of humans | |
| - Hybrid production systems [incl. robots] can bridge the gap between humans and machines abilities | ||
| - Cobots can perform unsafe, repetitive, or boring tasks so workers can perform other more value-added tasks | ||
| Interaction design | - Working with an advanced socio-technological system can result in a degree of uncertainty | - Autonomous robots might be able to identify and adapt to a worker’s individual strengths and needs |
| - Audio feedback while controlling a multi-robot set up increases reaction time | - The interface design of a robotic system can significantly influence performance, cooperation and satisfaction, by increasing feature visibility and giving feedback | |
| - Lack of confidence in sensory systems for physical contact [during HRI] | - Minimize injury through viscoelastic coverings, mechanical absorption systems, lightweight structures and collision detection systems | |
| - […] | ||
| - “High error rate, complicates handling” | ||
| - “Perishability of the robot and its repair | ||
| - the consequences of a delay in production” | - “The simple handling” | |
| - “I foresee many technical problems in the human-machine-robot collaboration.” | - “That it works” | |
| - “Prone to failure, acceptance of the workforce” | ||
| - […] | ||
| Operation and supervision | - Residual risk/unreliability cannot be eliminated completely | - Reliable automation can improve operator performance |
| - Automating tasks through robotic automation might lessen operator workload, if the technology is reliable | ||
| - “Older” persons have fear of failure, problems of understanding” | - “Increase work performance” | |
| - “Elimination of personnel by machinery use” | - “Increasing productivity through daily operation in the service, healthcare” | |
| - “Replacement of employees” | - “More productivity” | |
| - […] | - “More profit for the company” | |
| Ambiguous (Interaction design/Operation and supervision) | - As system complexity increase, so might the cognitive workload of operators | |
| - Controlling more than two robotic systems can decrease performance and increase error rate | - Effective HRI is achieved by considering both humans and robots [abilities] | |
| - “Difficulties in examining the use, not related to the technology” | - The mental status of the human partner plays an important part in the collaboration […]. [It is proposed to] adjust the human workload according to the stress level of the operator | |
| - “Service and manipulation in production” | ||
| Organisational | ||
| Training | - Cognitive overload of workers [due to constant need for learning] | |
| - [Industry 4.0 incl. robots] is driven forward more quickly than training and education institutes are able to adapt the qualification profile of existing and future workers | ||
| - “Knowledge when using it” | ||
| - “Problem in robot learning (use)” | ||
| Change management | - Without effective human leadership, and material resources operators will struggle to be effective | - Robots will support demographic and diverse team structures |
| - Fear, that increasing digitization will result in a large wave of unemployment | - Participation, communication, manager support, training, worker empowerment and existing process [are process enabler when introducing a robotic system] | |
| - Union membership, awareness of process complexity, manual process variability and [scarcity of] resources [are barriers] | ||
| - “Destruction of many jobs, chance for a basic income” | - “When we manage to implement it in the environment it certainly picks up the acquisition of the yield, the work done” | |
| - “Not in the short-term. Think that a lot of time is needed for the work on the shop floor” | ||
| Introduction process | ||