Background: This paper presents the findings of a pilot research survey which assessed the degree of balance between safety and productivity, and its relationship with awareness and communication of human factors and safety rules in the aircraft manufacturing environment.Methods: The study was carried out at two Australian aircraft manufacturing facilities where a Likertscale questionnaire was administered to a representative sample. The research instrument included topics relevant to the safety and human factors training provided to the target workforce. The answers were processed in overall, and against demographic characteristics of the sample population.Results: The workers were sufficiently aware of how human factors and safety rules influence their performance and acknowledged that supervisors had adequately communicated such topics. Safety and productivity seemed equally balanced across the sample. A preference for the former over the latter wasassociated with a higher awareness about human factors and safety rules, but not linked with safety communication. The size of the facility and the length and type of employment were occasionally correlated with responses to some communication and human factors topics and the equilibrium between productivity and safety.Conclusion: Although human factors training had been provided and sufficient bidirectional communication was present across the sample, it seems that quality and complexity factors might have influencedthe effects of those safety related practices on the safety-productivity balance for specific parts of the population studied. Customization of safety training and communication to specific characteristics of employees may be necessary to achieve the desired outcomes.
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Future work processes are going to change in several aspects. The working population (at least in Western European countries) is decreasing, while average age of employees increases. Their productivity is key to continuity in sectors like healthcare and manufacturing. Health and safety monitoring, combined with prevention measures must contribute to longer, more healthy and more productive working careers. The ‘tech-optimist’ approach to increase productivity is by means of automation and robotization, supported by IT, AI and heavy capital investments. Unfortunately, that kind of automation has not yet fulfilled its full promise as productivity enhancer as the pace of automation is significantly slower than anticipated and what productivity is gained -for instance in smart industry and healthcare- is considered to be ‘zero-sum’ as flexibility is equally lost (Armstrong et al., 2023). Simply ‘automating’ tasks too often leads to ‘brittle technology’ that is useless in unforeseen operational conditions or a changing reality. As such, it is unlikely to unlock high added-value. In healthcare industry we see “hardly any focus on research into innovations that save time to treat more patients.” (Gupta Strategists, 2021). Timesaving, more than classic productivity, should be the leading argument in rethinking the possibilities of human-technology collaboration, as it allows us to reallocate our human resources towards ‘care’, ’craft’ and ’creativity’.
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The labor productivity of construction projects is low. This urges construction companies to increase their labor efficiency, particularly when demands grow and labor is scarce. This blog introduces an overview that helps practitioners identify causes of low productivity to find and eliminate the root causes.
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Aanleiding: Automatisering kan leiden tot beter gebruik van materialen en afval reduceren. Dit brengt verbeteringen met zich mee voor 'people, planet and profit' (PPP) - mensen, het milieu en de winst. Een specifieke vorm van automatisering, de ontwikkeling van zelfrijdende auto's en vrachtauto's, gaat snel. Maar om zelfrijdende voertuigen beschikbaar te maken is er nog veel onderzoek en ontwikkeling nodig op verschillende gebieden. Er zijn nog veel vragen te beantwoorden op het gebied van onder andere truckontwerp, betrouwbare software, aansprakelijkheid, trajectplanning en logistiek. Doelstelling Het doel van het Intralog-project is om voor de maatschappij en de private sector een significante bijdrage te leveren aan de mogelijkheden van zelfrijdende voertuigen in de commerciële transportsector. Het Intralog-project onderzoekt de toegevoegde waarde voor PPP van 'automated guided trucks' (AGT's) aan logistieke operaties bij distributiecentra en interterminal/intermodal traffic hubs. Dit gebeurt in twee stappen: 1) het identificeren van het potentieel met betrekking tot de vraag vanuit de logistieke omgeving; 2. het ontwerpen, realiseren, testen en valideren van mogelijke strategieën voor het implementeren van AGT's in een logistiek scenario. Beoogde resultaten Het concrete resultaat van het project bestaat uit onderzoekstools en hardware- en softwaremodellen voor Intralog. Deze bieden een goede mogelijkheid om de opgedane kennis te verspreiden. De projectdeelnemers zullen bijdragen aan workshops, tentoonstellingen en in Nederland georganiseerde symposia. De onderzoeksresultaten verspreiden ze op conferenties en door middel van publicaties in technische vakbladen. De uiteindelijke Intralog-resultaten worden gepresenteerd op een afsluitend congres. De resultaten zullen worden samengevat in een boekje.
In September 2018 a gaming dashboard is implemented and reviewed on effect at Jan de Rijk, Gebroeders Versteijnen and Merba. The dash board should give insight in the individual and team performance of employees in the their work processes through a gamesome modern visualisation‘In what way is it possible to design and apply ‘game design techniques’ and ‘game elements’ in performance dashboards, so that employees are constantly motivated to improve productivity, quality and safety of their individual proceedings and learning, so that the investment in gamification is profitable?’
With increasing labor shortages, sectors using mobile machines (automotive/industry/agrifood/logistics) have a rising need for productivity improvement. With evolving technology, mobile machine control has stepped from hydraulics to electronics using sensors and smart systems to support drivers and allowing intelligent and automated machine functions. Verification and validation costs of such complex functionality urge the need for virtual solution routes to limit the lead time, cost and safety issues of real-world testing. RAAK-mkb project Fast&Curious developed tools to enable model-driven development for the control of a wide range of vehicle systems. This included automatic code generation support from MATLAB/Simulink® into the Bodas RC30 family vehicle controllers from Bosch Rexroth (see www.openMBD.com). The solution has been adopted by several SMEs allowing them to start working in a model-driven way, helping them to do virtual verification&validation, lowering development time and costs. Meanwhile, Rexroth adopted MATLAB/Simulink for core vehicle functions development and currently develops Fast&Curious-alike automatic code generation support for their recent RC40 controllers. Virtuoso aims to further improve productivity on simulation level by creating an interface layer in Simulink to (automatically) test impact of hardware interface imperfections and failures, such as noise and short circuits, as well as to seamlessly switch between continuous (early development) and discretized (deployment-oriented) input/output behavior. Companies like Emoss and Jautomatisering are interested in such solutions, allowing them to adopt efficient, model-driven processes and supporting their engineers in the required hydraulics-to-software/electronics skill-shift. The solution connects well to future developments like robotization. Besides supporting development of vehicle automation and mobile robotics, MATLAB/Simulink also supports ROS (Robot Operating System) via co-simulation and co-deployment. ROS has become the standard in (mobile) robot control development and is used by many parties. Virtuoso further closes the gap between development and deployment and allows future integration in mobile robotics, foreseen as next step.
