The DIGA tool is a digital solution designed to enhance the creation and management of assembly instructions in industrial settings. DIGA aims to improve cognitive ergonomics and facilitate efficient work instruction design. The increasing complexity of industrial processes, particularly in high-variation production environments, necessitates innovative approaches to work instruction design that reduce cognitive load, improve accuracy, and optimize training effectiveness. This article presents the DIGA tool that aims to improve cognitive ergonomics and facilitate efficient work instruction design in an industrial setting. The tool was tested together with industry and results indicate that the need and interest for DIGA is big in industry and that the tool is easy to use

This paper explores the use of digital technology stages and knowledge demand types for achieving energy efficiency. Digital technology stages are the steps toward developing an intelligent and networked factory: computerization, connectivity, visibility, transparency, predictive capacity, and adaptability. Knowledge demand types refer to the knowledge and skills needed to implement energy management through technical, process, and leadership knowledge. Empirical data were collected from a critical single case study at an industrial manufacturing company. The study made two significant contributions. Firstly, it identifies fourteen challenges and improvement potentials when working with energy monitoring, evaluation, and optimization, demonstrating the critical role of digital technology stages and knowledge demand types. Secondly, the study presents a conceptual framework indicating how companies could overcome pitfalls and enhance energy efficiency by combining digital technologies and knowledge demands. Future work will include technical implementations and its connection to knowledge management. 

Industry 5.0 and advancements of artificial intelligence are changing our perspective of Operator 5.0. The design of cognitive automation was explored in a case study where two scenarios could be reached at a rubber factory: 1) the operator works as a slave to superior technology or 2) the operator works as a cyborg that uses available technology to enhance its capabilities for decision-making. The two scenarios are used with three available theoretical frameworks to highlight how design choices affect operator-machine interaction. The purpose of this article is to explore how operator interaction scenarios can be used to understand design choices for cognitive automation. The theoretical frameworks are: i) the MABA-MABA list, ii) Cognitive automation strategy and iii) user-centered design. Results show that the theoretical models do not support avoiding a high-risk outcome of system design. The next step in the design process is to study sub-tasks and assign cognitive automation levels to them according to what humans do best together with the operators that will be using the system. Future work includes developing team personas and further elaborating on the slave and cyborg scenario using foresight

Projektet har studerat sårbarheter i försörjningen av kritiska material och produkter vid kris eller konflikt, men också möjligheter till stärkt nationell resiliens. Genom fallstudier och systemanalys har projektet undersökt hur Sverige kan öka sin förmåga att snabbt ställa om och säkra tillgången till viktiga komponenter inom vård, skyddsutrustning och elektronik.Projektet har fokuserat på följande materialområden: plast, metall och elektronik. Plast är till stor del fossilbaserad och har låg återvinningsgrad, metaller kräver ofta importerade legeringsämnen trots goda inhemska resurser och dagens elektronikproduktion är starkt globaliserad med låg självförsörjningsgrad. Samtidigt finns betydande inhemsk kapacitet inom flera områden –exempelvis plastformulering, metallbearbetning och elektronikmontering – som kan mobiliseras vid behov.Fallstudier på medicintekniska produkter visade att additiv tillverkning (3D-printing) kan bidra till snabb omställning men har begränsningar i materialval och produktionsvolym. För formsprutning, som traditionellt har längre ledtider, kan dessa reduceras kraftigt genom effektiv samverkan och parallella arbetsmoment. En ny produkt designades, verifierades och producerades inom 60 timmar – ett tydligt exempel på hur svensk industri kan agera snabbt vid behov.För munskydd klass IIR genomfördes nödproduktion med testning enligt gällande standarder. Nationell kapacitet finns för vissa non-woven-material, medan man för andra är beroende av import. En mobil produktionslinje testades och utvärderades genom sårbarhetsanalys, vilket visade att även små enheter kan bidra till märkbart ökad resiliens.Inom elektronikområdet identifierades flera utmaningar. Fallstudien på växelriktare visade att återtillverkning och reparation är möjligt med rätt kompetens och tillgång till komponenter. Många delar kan återanvändas från konsumentelektronik, men avancerade halvledarkomponenter kräver import. Inhemsk kapacitet finns för mönsterkort, transformatorer och montering, vilket ger goda förutsättningar för decentraliserad produktion.Rapporten presenterar även metoder för att utvärdera resiliens – både kvalitativt och kvantitativt – där samspelet mellan teknik, organisation och kompetens är avgörande. Genom att identifiera svaga länkar, bygga redundans och träna personal kan svensk försörjningsförmåga stärkas. Slutsatsen är tydlig: Sverige har kapacitet och kapabilitet att bygga ett mer motståndskraftigt system, men kräver strategiska investeringar och samordning.

För att stötta företag att bli mer hållbara och hjälpa dem att bli resilienta och mindre sårbara behövs stöd. Stödet måste vara enkelt att förstå och innehålla tydliga steg som är anpassade till målgruppen. Denna dokumentation beskriver hur metoden Utvärdering av resiliens och sårbarhet i produktion ska genomföras och inkluderar förberedelser, uppföljning, exempel och fördjupningsinformation som kan behövas. Syftet med rapporten är att öka resiliensen i ett företag genom att identifiera och adressera sårbarheter i produktionsprocessen. Metoden består av fyra steg och ett förberedande steg som är lätt att tillämpa och fördjupande analyser kan genomföras genom att ytterligare undersöka till exempel materialflöden, subkomponenter, supply chain och kompetensförsörjning.Målgruppen för Utvärderingen av resiliens och sårbarhet är coacher eller yrkesverksamma som vill utvärdera sin produktionsanläggnings resiliens och sårbarhet. Utvärderingsenheten är en producerande fabrik men metoden kan genomföras på flera produktionsanläggningar eller en hel försörjningskedja. 

This chapter describes how to embrace participation and digital technologies in the manufacturing industry. A framework, PArticipative Readiness Level (PARL) was designed to support companies to work concretely with organizational aspects, the operator role and the production system and ranges from -1 to 5. PARL was based on six theoretical concepts: participative innovation, participative safety, intelligent teams, operator 4.0/operator 5.0, digital literacy and lean. Three cases were used to show how PARL can be used to support companies in reaching Industry 5.0: 1) onboarding for a battery manufacturing process through immersive training, 2) efficient safety work in the forest industry and 3) emergency production for manual assembly of face masks. PARL was useful in describing the current state as well as for identifying the next steps for companies to boost wide participation as well as how to embrace digital technologies. 

Digitalization and automation in industry can have both positive and negative effects on social sustainability. On one hand it can be a basis for monotonous, uncreative, and even dangerous workplaces and in some cases might even result in people losing their work. On the other hand, it can be a base for ergonomically sound and inclusive work, engaging everyone in improvements. This project aims for moving the focus on positive effects for social sustainability while still staying cost efficient and effective in economic and ecologic sustainability for digitalization and automation of work instructions and training in manual operations like assembly, machine operation & setup, maintenance, and material handling. The Industry 4.0 paradigm offers radically increased opportunities for doing just that. For example, increased digitization can create efficiency improvements through shorter lead times and reduced disruptions to production. New generations of technology and software as well as information dissemination can be accelerated and the traceability of products and materials in the industrial systems can be greatly increased. Digitization also provides opportunities to increase industrial resilience to challenges coming from elsewhere, such as demographic change and climate threats. Advanced application of digitization is seen by industries and decision-makers as the most important enabler for achieving the strategic sustainability goals and Agenda2030. A crucial factor for competitiveness is the human contribution. Here too, digitalisation is radically changing the conditions. In the last 20 years, work instructions have been transformed from printed text on paper into an increasingly digital representation. As knowledge increases about how work instructions for the manufacturing industry should be designed, they are rarely designed according to user conditions. At best, this results in a missed opportunity for performance improvements and at worst, it could potentially result in quality deficiencies, efficiency deficiencies and a lower degree of inclusion of staff groups. Digitization and automation permeate both society and industry more and more and there are many different technologies on the market. These can contribute to both increased efficiency and flexibility for the industry. However, there are a lot of challenges to both implement, design, and use instructions. Studies conducted in industry 2014–2018 show that operators and assembly workers only use instructions in 20–25% of cases in the operational phase when they are perceived as inefficient (Fast-Berglund & Stahre, 2013; Mattsson et al., 2018). Of course, this also increases the risks of, for example, assembly errors by not using instructions to the extent that they should be used. The corporate culture and standards are also an important part of how instructions are created and used. Depending on the structure and condition of the company and the production unit, for example, an assembly instruction at one company may include information about the product, process, and work environment, while an assembly instruction at another company includes completely different or only parts of this information. Of course, this is a natural consequence of sometimes far-inherited corporate cultures and traditions, but experience has also shown that it is to a very large extent the nature of work that defines the type of support system needed. In line with increased automation and increasing product variation as a result of increased customisation, operators’ tasks will require more creative work than before where the aim is to enable and handle the results of individual workers' creative thoughts about improvements in their own work situation, increasing cognitive load (Taylor et al., 2020). The development of digitalisation has created new opportunities for improved communication among employees in the manufacturing industry (Oesterreich & Teuteberg, 2016). Therefore, this technological development can and should support operators cognitively (Kaasinen et al., 2020; Mattsson et al., 2016). Although many new digital technologies are being developed and are available (Romero et al., 2016), it is still difficult to implement these so that people's cognitive work is supported. This is often due to the fact that the implementation does not take place in a way that people are comfortable with (Parasuraman & Riley, 1997). In many cases, humans are expected to adapt to technology and not the other way around (Thorvald et al., 2021). To implement better support for their operators, companies should focus on identifying the information needs that exist (Haghi et al., 2018) and then visualize it in a way that is useful to operators. The central aim for the project is to demonstrate how knowledge and systematic development of cognitive support and information design can increase quality and flexibility in future production and how this can be considered in the implementation of digital work instructions. In the industrial case studies, current state-of-practice in information presentation will be investigated and analysed together with state-of-the art knowledge and technology to map successful efforts in industry, identify what it is that makes them successful, or how a particularly challenging situation can be further improved through our knowledge of cognitive work in production.

Industry 5.0 emphasises how technology may benefit humans and marks a move towards a socio-technical paradigm. This study looks at how Augmented Reality (AR) can be integrated into human-centered smart manufacturing systems to improve operator performance, especially when it comes to assembly and disassembly work. Relevant AR applications in manufacturing are found through a methodical assessment of the literature, emphasising the necessity of human-centered design methodologies. The paper then offers basic recommendations for integrating AR systems into manual workstations in an efficient manner with the goal of enhancing operator productivity and welfare. The background, motivation and methods are discussed. The main findings include specific considerations for supporting the AR design in assembly, discussing the relevance of targeting group of users, choicing the suitable devices according to the usability and developing effective instructions. 

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how to best learn to run a collaborative robot in a safe way through different types of vocational training. To learn how to run a collaborative robot safely has many challenges. The challenges connected to learning are: i) life-long learning and re-skilling takes time to deploy and ii) in traditional training information is forgotten. In addition, there is a lack in labour and although Industry 4.0 envisioned an operator that would be intelligent and skilled to manage complicated systems there simply is no such personnel. Therefore, vocational training should be designed to fit everyone. Three experiments were carried out: 1) how safe the operator felt and what type of theory that was preferred, 2) if and how VR could be used for safety-critical tasks and 3) how a reduced version of theory and how having a training online effected the operators experience of feeling safe. Results indicate that theory length must be adapted to the trained task, that operators feel safe due to the presence of the trainer (both IRL and virtual) and that VR could be used to learn safety-critical aspects in an efficient way. In conclusion, this article shows that safety-critical tasks could be trained through VR and that the design of the vocational training in this article is a way to ensure operator safety and the perception of being safe when working with a collaborative robot.

This study studies the challenges of effective communication and collaboration in remote design review meetings (DRMs) and explores the potential of Extended Reality (XR) technologies to address these challenges. The research focuses on identifying recurring communication issues and the preferences of companies within the context of remote DRMs. The study involves qualitative content analysis and industry workshops to uncover the current problems with conventional approaches and the aspirations of companies regarding improved collaboration in the DRM process. Drawing upon the insights gathered from both the workshop and design review observations, this paper highlights the features that are critical for collaborative software to handle online design reviews. XR technologies offer immersive and interactive experiences that can transform communication and collaboration in the context of DRMs. By identifying the specific challenges faced in remote DRMs and understanding the desires of companies, this study sets the stage for a more efficient and effective collaborative process. It emphasizes the adaptability of XR technologies to meet industry needs and integrate seamlessly into existing workflows. The study concludes by highlighting the potential for XR technologies to enhance collaboration in DRMs, making them a valuable tool for various industries.