Workforce and supply chain disruption as a digital and technological innovation opportunity for resilient manufacturing systems in the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic (also known as COVID-19), workforce downsizing needs, safety requirements, supply chain breaks and inventory shortages affected manufacturing systems' and supply chain's responsiveness and resilience. Companies wandered in a disrupted scenario because recommended actions/strategies to survive - and thrive - were not available an improvised actions to keep their operations up and running. This paper analyzes the COVID-19 impacts on the workforce and supply resilience in a holistic manner. The following research questions are discussed: (i) how can manufacturing firms cope with urgent staff deficiencies while sustaining at the same time a healthy and safe workforce in the perspective of socially sustainable and human-centric cyber-physical production systems?; (ii) is remote working (cf. smart working) applicable to shop-floor workers?; (iii) is it possible to overcome supply chain breaks without stopping production? In the first part, we propose three Industry 4.0-driven solutions that would increase the workforce resilience, namely: (i) the Plug-and-Play worker; (ii) the Remote Operator 4.0; (iii) the Predictive Health of the Operational Staff. In the second part, the concepts of (i) Digital & Unconventional Sourcing, i.e. Additive Manufacturing, and (ii) Product/Process Innovation are investigated from a novel business continuity and integration perspective. We ultimately argue that forward-looking manufacturing companies should turn a disruptive event like a pandemic in an opportunity for digital and technological innovation of the workplace inspired by the principles of harmonic digital innovation (that places the human well-being at the center). These aspects are discussed with use cases, system prototypes and results from research projects carried out by the authors and real-world examples arising lessons learned and insights useful for scientists, researchers and managers.

Keywords: Additive manufacturing; COVID-19 pandemic; Digitalization; Industry 4.0; Manufacturing systems; Operator 4.0; Resilience; Supply chain disruption.

Fig. 1

Pandemic disruption profile (adapted from Sheffi & Rice, 2005).

Fig. 2

An evolutionary paradigm: from a pandemic to a super smart society.

Fig. 3

An innovation design framework.

Fig. 4

The three “how” for the plug-and-play workers.

Fig. 5

Extending the factory boundaries: home-factory environment.

Fig. 6

Remote Operator 4.0: Example of Virtual Relity for remote monitoring and situation awareness.

Fig. 7

Remote Operator 4.0: example of Mixed Reality application to support onsite operators.

Fig. 8

A solution architecture for the Predictive Well-being of the Operational Staff.

Fig. 9

Technological architecture and solutions for the three types of workers.

Fig. 10

A possible human–machine interface for plug-and-play workers and remote operators 4.0.

Fig. 11

New interaction paradigms for a pandemic workforce: (a) onsite plug-and-play workers using gesture-based interaction with the machine through Mixed Reality, (b) remote operator 4.0 monitoring/controlling the machine tool with Virtual Reality, (c) remote operator 4.0 positioning the digital twin of the machine and interacting with it via vocal-based instructions.

Fig. 12

Make every place your workplace: visualize remotely the digital twin of machines thanks to “environmental understanding capabilities” of a MR Mobile ARCore Enabled Application: (a) scanning the environment, (b) placing the machine digital twin to interact with, (c) using a handheld device to more around the digital twin.