Högskolan i Skövde

In this paper, the 206 papers published at the Swedish Production Symposium (SPS) conferences in 2018, 2020, and 2022 have been analyzed, primarily focusing their relationship to the six industrial challenges identified by Produktion2030. Based on the analysis, ten in-depth interviews with representatives from the Swedish Production Academy (SPA) and industry have been done. These interviews have reflected on the analysis of the papers from the SPS conferences as well as progress during the years of the SPS conferences. The emergence and implementation of the SPS conferences have a similar time span as the Vinnova program Produktion2030. The analysed papers indicate that the focus and development directions of the two have been similar, but not completely overlapping. The close collaboration between academia and industry in Swedish production research is clearly shown by the papers and indicated through an alignment with the industrial challenges indicated by Produktion2030. Of all the papers, 2/3 clearly state such collaboration, and the interviews indicate that the extent of the collaboration is even more extensive than that. The findings from the analysis also include the distribution of research funders involved, gender distribution among authors, and where they are from. Two findings that stand out are the need to more clearly state funding bodies for the published research and to also state more clearly in the papers how, in what way, and with whom the researchers collaborated. 

Collaborative robots, cobots can be an alternative to traditional industrial robots, but for small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, the adoption still is in an early stage. This study, a combination of literature study and interviews with staff at companies and reserachers, aims to identify the challenges for manufacturing SMEs when introducing cobots in the business so that future work in companies can be based on these finding facilitating a smooth implementation. The mainchallenges identified are related to safety, performance, strategy, involvement, and training. Safety aspects are crucial since human operators work closely with collaborative robots and risk serious injuries even though the managers and operators in the case study do not seem to worry since they perceive the current cobots as relatively slow and safe. Other high-prioritised challenges are related to performance and strategy, e.g., how to achieve cost-effectiveness with small production volumes and get the robotic investment to pay off in the long turn, but also to choose a proper cobot solution and a reliable supplier, find suitable work tasks and obtain quality if the cobot fails to recognize a defective product or skewed inputs on the production line. Employee involvement is another success factor since early involvement of the operators leads to better acceptance and understanding of the new technology and the changed work situation. There is a need for skilled, educated workers as well, although the case study shows that the SMEs highlight the importance of choosing a robot system that is easy to learn and easy to use for everyone. This paper will discuss challenges when introducing cobots in manufacturing SMEs.

Collaborative robots, cobots, are seen as an alternative to traditional industrial robots since they are more flexible, less space-consuming, and can share the workspace with human operators. For small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, the adoption still is in an early stage. This study aims to examine the challenges for manufacturing SMEs when introducing collaborative robots in the business. A literature review is conducted as well as a case study, where managers and operators from five Swedish companies are interviewed about their experiences regarding the introduction of collaborative robots. Additional interviews with international researchers in the field are conducted as well. Since the aim is to understand the challenges in a rather new field, which human-robot collaboration still is for SMEs, this is a qualitative explorative study, with the purpose to gather rich insight about the field. The data has been analyzed in an inductive qualitative analysis.

The results show that the biggest challenges for manufacturing SMEs when introducing collaborative robots are related to safety, performance, strategy, involvement, and training. Safety aspects are crucial since human operators work closely with collaborative robots and risk serious injuries even though the managers and operators in the case study do not seem to worry since they perceive the robots as quite slow and safe. Proper safety assessments are important as well, even though there is a concern about the lack of proper safety regulations. Other challenges are related to performance and strategy, e.g how to achieve cost-effectiveness with small production volumes and get the robotic investment to pay off in the long turn, but also to choose a proper cobot solution and a reliable supplier, find suitable work tasks, and obtain quality if the cobot fails to recognize a defective product or skewed inputs on the production line. The recommendation from the companies in the case study is to start with an easy task and to see it as a long-term investment.

One important key to success is to find a flexible cobot solution that suits the company's individual needs. Employee involvement is another success factor since involving the operators from the beginning leads to better acceptance and understanding of the new technology and the changed work situation. There is a need for skilled, educated workers as well, although the case study shows that the SMEs highlight the importance of choosing a robot system that is easy to learn and easy to use for everyone. The researchers in the study highlight the need for smarter solutions equipped with enabling technologies and the SME managers call for flexible removable solutions with sensors and vision systems for quality control and the ability to handle surprises on the way.

En förstudie baserad på användarstudier kan vara hur välgjord som helst, men det spelar ingen roll om den inte används efteråt utan bara ligger och dammar hos kunden. Vad är det som gör att användarstudier ibland inte används av kunden som det var tänkt? Det är en av frågorna för det här arbetet, vars syfte är att ta reda på vilka framgångsfaktorerna är för en lyckad leverans av användarstudier i en förstudie genomförd av en UX- konsult.  Frågeställningen är Hur ska resultatet från användarstudier, som utförs i förstudier av konsulter, levereras och kommuniceras för största påverkan hos kunden? En fallstudie har genomförts, där 15 personer har intervjuats. Majoriteten av dem arbetar med användarstudier på ett svenskt konsultföretag och övriga är konkurrenter eller kund till företaget.

Slutsatsen är att det inte går att begränsa svaret till att enbart handla om slutpresentationen och paketeringen av resultatet. Tvärtom. Grunden till en framgångsrik leverans läggs redan i början av projektet, från den allra första kontakten med kunden, och pågår sedan under hela processen. Kärnan bakom framgång är kommunikation på olika sätt: att kommunicera för att skapa förståelse för metoden, användaren och problemet, att kommunicera för att uppnå samsyn och delaktighet bland alla inblandade och att kommunicera för att se helhetsperspektivet, förvalta materialet efteråt och lära sig av goda och dåliga erfarenheter.

Ett antal riktlinjer för en framgångsrik leverans av användarstudier i en förstudie har utarbetats, som är tänkt att användas som en checklista av UX-konsulter, för att se till att inga delar glöms bort.