Employee-centric innovation: Integrating participatory design and video-analysis to foster the transition to Industry 5.0
Valeria Orso, Riccardo Ziviani, G. Bacchiega, Giulio Bondani, Anna Spagnolli, Luciano Gamberini
Abstract
Recently, the paradigm of Industry 5.0 has been introduced to complement that of Industry 4.0, which turned out to be technology- rather than human-oriented. Industry 5.0 is meant to foster a transition toward a human-centric industry, where the worker’s well-being is prioritized. To meet this goal, it is crucial to directly involve employees from the earliest stages of design project. In the present work, we describe a case study that was meant to re-design the technology used in a validation laboratory. We adopted a mixed-method approach integrating employee’s self-reported data and objective event-based data from in-the-field video-analysis. By doing this we could build a thorough understanding of the work activities and of the related main issues. We then devised a list of re-design recommendations that were translated in a revised application and in the suggested introduction of portable devices. The outcomes of a preliminary usability evaluation of the revised application were promising, indicating the effectiveness of the methodological approach.