Embarking on a journey to pilot the shift towards a human-centric industry
The SEISMEC project -Supporting European Industry Success Maximization through Empowerment Centred development- officially began its journey this February with a two-day kick-off meeting that took place in Rotterdam, wonderfully organised and hosted by the project’s coordination at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
This meeting marked the first step in a journey that will surely challenge, inspire, and help us lay the foundations of our long-term workplan. Through the lens of social sciences and humanities, SEISMEC holds the promise of creating and nurturing a brand-new Industry 5.0 piloting framework that strikes the right balance between disruptive technology and human-centricity.
As we stand on the threshold of this new adventure, we would like to reflect on the significance and the outcomes of this first milestone for SEISMEC, and invite our readers to join us in this exciting journey.
Day 1 – Better Work, Better Workplaces
The first day of our kick-off was devoted to hosting a mini symposium on the topic of ‘’Better work, better workplaces’’, structured around two keynote speeches and three dedicated panel discussions that served as a catalyst for engaging interactions around critical topics like digitalisation and AI, trust, inclusivity, corporate change and the future of work.
Following these discussions, Prof. Jason Pridmore (EUR) -our project’s coordinator- shared some core ideas distilling what SEISMEC aspires to achieve over the next 4 years:
- Innovate responsibly – technology should be a means to an end, not an end in itself.
- Engage in strategic implementation – too many tools implemented at the same time leads to a lack of focus and increases reluctance to change
- Prioritise agency in participation – there are no one-size-fits-all participative approaches.
Help people learn how to learn and relearn – we often have a mismatch of talent; investing in careers is a must. –As further inspiration, below are some bite-sized pieces from the symposium that both highlight and expand on these statements.
Keynote 1 – Empowering Lives and Transforming Enterprises: Exploring the Potential of Augmented Reality Technologies
Prof. Ting Li (EUR)
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“Until now, most of us associate AR [Augmented Reality] with entertainment purposes, but AR & VR [Virtual Reality] could transform organisations and enhance worker’s performance’’. Two case studies were presented: one for the airline industry and one regarding hearing loss. Challenges of high costs, time-consuming processes and worker’s performance can be minimised with the assistance of AI and VR. |
Keynote 2 – Innovating Responsibility: How Industry 5.0 is Reshaping Europe’s Economic Landscape
Steven Dhondt (TNO)
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‘’Industry 4.0 was focused on automation productivity. Industry 5.0 focuses on privacy, creativity, sense of achievement, satisfaction, and innovation of technologies deployed, which should be done in a non-patronizing way.’’ ‘’Change in public policy towards digitalization. From tax systems to subsidies and laws. The behaviour of workers and employers should be considered more’’ |
Panel 1 – Technology transitions from AI and beyond
Aaron Ding (TUDelft), Irina Stipanovic (Infra Plan), Ken Brown (UCC), Joao Goncalves (EUR)
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‘[to embed the human component, we need to] support workers with making choices; but there is a real fear that their work could be taken and automated’’ ‘’Organizations interact with AI at different paces, with different definitions and understandings. Multiple negative aspects centred the discussion concerning AI. But! There is value behind AI—how can we sustainably grow AI applications and their adoption?’’ |
Panel 2 – Industry and the challenge and opportunities of digitalization
Tasos Vasileiadis (iED), Piotr Dymarski (MOW), Max Schalow (GoTulip), Melita Damjanović (ZAG), Diane Confurius (TNO)
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‘’Management should not patronise workers; technology cannot be imposed but rather should support solving employees’ issues and needs. Communication, worker voice, feedback voices to see if implementation is successful.’’ ‘’Changes in technology imply changes in methodology. Resistance from workers potentially will be raised. Use ambassadors in the company to drive change. The volume of changes, i.e., sequential process, one tool at a time. Workers want to see real benefits to them. ‘’ |
Panel 3: Keeping the human at the centre of digitalisation in industry
Jan Laurijssen (SDworx), Klaus Heeger (CESI), Angela Greco (TUDelft), Jovana Karanovic (EUR)
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‘’ Unions can promote more positivity to drive changes.’’ “Artificial Intelligence use from HR professionals—promising combination of language models with people’s analytics; experimenting with internal labour markets—motivates people internally to change jobs, become someone else. It matches people, nudging them to take on new roles. |
Day 2 – Consortium get-together
The second day in Rotterdam found all consortium partners gathered and ready to kick off the activities of the SEISMEC project! This meeting was more than just a presentation of tasks and deadlines; it was also an opportunity to examine the project’s core vision and challenges together, as well as initiate discussions around the overall scope, timeline and monitoring plans for our pilots.
One of the highlights of our agenda for the day was an interactive session on concepts and dimensions of human-centrism, led by our colleagues at TNO. Below are the thoughts -collected live on Mentimeter- from SEISMEC’s consortium members on the practical implementation of human centricity: specifically targeting main challenges, incentives and potential solutions.
We are looking forward to the next 4 years on our journey to shape the shift towards a human-centric industry!
Find below a few snapshots from our two-day event:
