Up-Skill blog

The Up-Skill project, ‘Up-skilling for Industry 5.0 Roll-out’, aims to deepen our understanding of how industrial and manufacturing businesses can maximise the benefits of human-machine collaboration. It specifically examines the impact of introducing AI, robotics, and intelligent production technologies into organisations, exploring how these advancements reshape working practices, skill requirements, and employee interactions.

As technologies rapidly evolve, so do the challenges faced by businesses wanting to adopt them. Previous research from the Up-Skill project has identified a need for balancing the integration of new technologies with existing practices whilst ensuring active worker involvement and management awareness of economic, social, and technical impacts.

In this article we talk to EUR ING Professor Darren Williams MEng, EngD, CEng FIET, MWeldI, who works for TWI Ltd as Welding Systems Team Manager and for Lancaster University as Director of the Joining 4.0 Innovation Centre (J4IC), a strategic partnership between TWI and Lancaster University.  Both roles focus on research and development (R&D) of novel, digital technologies for implementation in welding and joining techniques.

In recent ethnographic case studies conducted by Anglia Ruskin University and documented in the report titled "Detailed Case Study Ethnographic Notes," researchers investigated the impact of digital innovation on manufacturing companies navigating Industry 5.0’s unique challenges and opportunities.

A new report, led by Anglia Ruskin University, provides a detailed examination of the implementation of digital technologies across various manufacturing firms. The report synthesises lessons learned from multiple case studies, highlighting the complexities and challenges faced by organisations in adopting new technologies.

In the context of Industry 5.0, skills development is not solely focused on equipping frontline workers with digital competencies; it also seeks to deepen the integration of human abilities within cyber-physical systems at every level of a business. This conversation between Mike Hepworth from KNEIA and Chris Land from Anglia Ruskin University highlights the evolving needs of management in this new industrial era, where the human element is not replaced but empowered by technology.

Dr Alison Hirst is an Associate Professor of Organization Studies at Anglia Ruskin University. Her primary areas of research centre on organizational space and materiality and the use of ethnography as a way of researching and writing about organizations.

The Up-Skill project aims to explore the intricate relationship between automation, skilled labour, and organisational systems within the context of Industry 5.0. This article delves into the depths of the project's objectives, methodologies, and anticipated outcomes, shedding light on the critical role of enabling technologies in shaping the future of manufacturing.

The European Union is concerned that industry 4.0, the digitalisation and automation of industry, may lead us away from the sorts of societies and industries that we want and need to build. Industry 5.0, where we need to get to, encapsulates the concepts of human-centricity, resilience, and sustainability.

The speed of industrial technological development far exceeds that of the training and education that is necessary to use it. The Up-Skill project is aiming to equip organisations with information to allow them to implement the appropriate technologies and identify the skills and training requirements that will allow them to flourish in the digital age.

The concept of Industry 5.0 emphasises the importance of a human-centric approach, sustainability, and resilience in industrial transformations. This aligns with the European Commission's vision to steer Industry 4.0 towards placing workers' needs at the core of technology deployment.

Up-Skill and Bridges 5.0 took part in the HaDEA COP28 event "Empowering a Human-Centric Industry for the Twin Transitions".

Mälardalen Industrial Technology Centre (MITC) hosted an event on October 12th, 2023, which brought together over 130 industrial, manufacturing, and technological research stakeholders to discuss the topic of “Designing sustainability into modern manufacturing.”

Industry 5.0  recognises that machines and humans have complementary strengths. Rather than fully automating manufacturing processes, it encourages collaboration between skilled workers and advanced technologies. Workers are actively involved in decision-making, problem-solving, and the creative aspects of production, while machines handle repetitive and routine tasks. This is why in ‘UpSkill’ we have included a wide selection of artisans to work within this transition.

Following a comprehensive review of the Up-Skill case study organisation´s business strategies, outputs, production processes and strategic technology challenges and objectives, the next step for the Up-Skill researchers is to identify technologies that can provide solutions to manufacturing and production process issues, whilst simultaneously being integrated effectively with the human workforce and complimenting the firm´s overall business strategy and market operations.

The Up-Skill project focuses on understanding the impact of Industry 4.0 and 5G technologies, such as autonomous robots, machine learning, big data and analytics, augmented reality, and cloud computing, on job roles, job content and managerial competencies to help ensure the preservation of human knowledge, skills, and craftsmanship, shifting the business mindset from a substitution to an augmentation approach.

The triple bottom line is a concept that measures the success of a company, not only in terms of financial profits, but also their social and environmental impact. The three aspects of the triple bottom line are often referred to as people, planet, and profit.

If you are anything like the friends and colleagues that we interviewed to ask if they know what an ethnographer is, you will probably go blank. In truth, it is a term that sounds far more exotic and oddly distant than it actually is. An ethnographer is a social scientist who studies people and cultures by observing and interacting with them in their natural environment. Ethnographers can be useful in a variety of settings, including business, education, healthcare, and government, among others.

Despite long-held fears among workers, automation does not simply, by virtue of its inherent nature, ‘threaten’ jobs. Nor do jobs carry inherent irreducible characteristics that render them automatable. Different attempts at classifying ‘at risk’ occupations have, unsurprisingly, come to wildly different conclusions.

TWI is one of a team of partners in the Up-Skill Project, who are developing a greater understanding of how businesses and organisations can benefit from Industry 5.0.

Consortium members Malardalen University, the University of Milan, the Joining 4.0 Innovation Centre (J4IC: partners Lancaster University and TWI) and the Anglia Ruskin Innovation Centre (ARIC: partners Anglia Ruskin University and TWI) are currently working on the Up-Skill project: Up-skilling for Industry 5.0 Roll-out, which they won funding for in 2022 from the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme. The aim of Up-Skill is to develop a better understanding of how businesses can benefit from improved machine/human integration in the workplace.

The first Work Package of the Up-Skill project, consisting of a State-of-the-Art Literature Review, an Ethnographic Framework Report, and an Ethnography Workshop, has been completed, laying the foundation for the Up-Skill case studies to begin.

The Horizon Europe BRIDGES 5.0 Project, alongside Up-Skill, is a project managed by the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HADEA), related to the development of workforce skills for industry.

The Up-Skill project presented at TWI´s annual Digital Manufacturing Conference

A paradigm shift from automation to human-machine augmentation

Case studies will show how the potential for automation and human input is being played out in a range of industrial, competitive and supply chain settings.

Investigating the future of human-machine interaction in the workplace