Jobs and skills of production workers at manufacturing SMEs

The skillsets of production workers are crucial for the effective adoption of smart technologies which are largely shaped by job design. However, current literature lacks comprehensive insights into the skills and work designs of production workers in the context of Industry 5.0, thus hindering the successful adoption of Industry 5.0. Grounded in literature of work design and skills this study explores the required skills and perceived work design characteristics for adoption of smart technologies in Dutch SMEs in the context of AI, AR/VR, and Robotics. This qualitative study involved 19 semi-structured interviews with two groups: 6 work design experts and 12 professionals (managers and production workers). Results reveal a need to reassess traditional job profiles, as two distinct production workers roles emerge from the results. Machine operators face potential deskilling through low feedback from the job, task variety and job complexity, and foreman-production workers require additional skills due to job enlargement and enrichment. However, they seem to be put in this job role due to (1) the lack of various professional and transversal skills to fully utilize smart technologies, and (2) to accommodate a viable return on the technology investment. This highlights the importance of (1) balancing job resources and requirements in work design, (2) the usage of training programs for I5.0 skill development, and (3) understanding of contextual design elements of manufacturing systems that contribute to viable I5.0 adoption in SMEs. Finally, further research may investigate use-cases for viable smart technology adoption in an I5.0 context.