Using Concept of Operations to Design Human‐Centric Manufacturing Systems for Novel Products—A Comprehensive Prescriptive Case Study

ABSTRACT Efficient production systems are necessary for the realization of products that fulfill customer needs and delivery requirements. However, the process of designing the production system has received little academic attention, and today's manufacturing system design processes and architecture are still based on traditional engineering methods. This paper covers a case study using the systems engineering method Concept of Operations and Operational Concept for the design of a human‐centric production system for a novel product. A comprehensive prescriptive study was designed, combined with attempts to verify the methods used. The case study applies design methods defined in ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288. A total of six workshops, the development of Concepts of Operations, three levels of Operational Concept, and two validation studies are documented. A total of 166 persons participated, and up to 15 persons participated in the validation workshops. The analysis shows that the design methods addressed gaps identified in literature: (1) the lack of systematic and effective systems engineering design methods in production system design, and (2) the lack of inclusion of human aspects in the production system design. The gaps in the effectiveness of the methods remain to be fully evaluated as the project is still running and will not be concluded until 2025. Recommendations for future work include exploring how ConOps/OpsCon method can be more widely spread and adopted by engineering as a significant artifact for systems understanding for the design of more human‐centric, resilient production systems.