Human-centric manufacturing for human-system coevolution in Industry 5.0

Abstract

Manufacturers face challenges in competitiveness due to rapid technological innovations and shortages of skilled workers. A human-centric adaptive manufacturing approach is presented to address these challenges through coevolution of human skills and system capabilities via human-machine collaboration and on-site upskilling. The level of adaptation is conceptualized according to challenges, enablers, and human roles. Optimization models are used to adapt the design, configuration, and operation of systems around human skills, and a deep reinforcement learning model is employed to learn the optimal policy to integrate the adaptation and upskilling activities. The methodology shows good performance when assessed in an industrial-scale use case.