In 2019, there were over 15.7 million workers in manufacturing, making it the fourth largest industry in the United States. In the next decade, many workers in manufacturing could see their jobs eliminated or reconfigured. Nearly 10 percent of the jobs in manufacturing will be entirely new. Manufacturing is increasingly relying on smart technologies such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things, robots, cobots, and more. Preparing workers for this so-called fourth industrial revolution is not simply about training the workforce to push different buttons or monitor screens. Such an approach would only prepare workers for the machines of today and would fail to address decision-making skills needed for interacting with the smart-technology enabled workplace. This Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier (FW-HTF) Planning Grant project is identifying the specific decision-making skills that will be needed for the current workforce to be successful in smart manufacturing facilities of the future. The results from the project will help local and regional agencies create plans and prepare the workforce to ride the tide of technological change as manufacturing facilities adopt smart technologies.
This one-year planning project is gathering information on worker decision-making in established smart factories from different countries to identify decision-making competencies. These case studies, along with an experimental psychology project, and multiple, advisory group meetings, are being used to develop a smart factory worker readiness survey to identify individual strengths and gaps in essential decision-making skills. The project end result will be the development of training modules to assist current and future workers in the manufacturing industry work be more effective decision-makers.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
