ABSTRACT

Small manufacturing plants nowadays need to consider Industry 4.0 to stay competitive in the market. Among the challenges regarding the transformation towards Industry 4.0 are requirements to re-skill the staff for the new work environment. The staff have to either adapt to the workplace transformation brought by digitalisation, automation and robotics or face layoffs. This paper reports on a transformation process towards Industry 4.0 which was conducted in a small manufacturing enterprise where automated assembly line, industrial robots, codes and algorithms have replaced the previous manual set-up. In order to extend the learning models from educational to workplace settings, we investigated how a small manufacturing plant tackles the challenge of transformation towards Industry 4.0 with existing staff. We examined the transformation process through non-participant observations and 17 interviews during the initiation phase, and before, during, and after the new robotic system was launched. Based on the empirical study, we propose (a) a transformation method with respect to the workplace and adult learning scholarship and (b) a taxonomy of work-integrated learning activities to support the learning needed to manage transformations towards industry 4.0.

摘要

如今，小型制造工厂需要考虑工业4.0才能保持市场竞争力。向工业4.0转型的挑战包括要求重新技能员工以适应新的工作环境。员工必须适应数字化，自动化和机器人技术带来的工作场所转型，否则将面临裁员。本文报告了向工业4.0的转换过程，该过程是在一家小型制造企业中进行的，自动化装配线，工业机器人，代码和算法已替代了以前的手动设置。为了将学习模型从教育环境扩展到工作场所，我们调查了一家小型制造工厂如何利用现有员工应对向工业4.0转型的挑战。在启动阶段以及新机器人系统启动之前，期间和之后，我们通过非参与者观察和17次访谈检查了转换过程。基于实证研究，我们提出（a）关于工作场所和成人学习奖学金的转换方法，以及（b）工作整合学习活动的分类法，以支持管理向工业4.0转换所需的学习。