Industry 5.0 and Human-Robot Co-working

Abstract

According to many, we are at the brink of the fourth industrial revolution. The theme of Industry 4.0 is "Smart Manufacturing for the Future". Now, some futurists even discuss what the fifth industrial revolution's theme will be. There are a few visions for Industry 5.0. One emerging theme is human-robot co-working. In recent years, we have seen significant advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) research. Today, there are robots for various purposes at affordable prices in the market. It is not long before we closely interact with robots in our lives and workplaces. Testing autonomous cars in traffic is a promising example of this upcoming trend. There are companies having an employee record for robots or AI applications. While there are many studies on human-robot collaboration for low-level tasks with a focus on robot development, we lack studies focusing on organizational issues emerging from human-robot co-working. In this study, we discuss the possible issues related to human-robot co-working from the organizational and human employee's perspective. We believe the issues identified in this study will be the focus of many upcoming organizational robotics research studies. © 2019 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.