Stepping stone to smarter supervision: a human-centered multidisciplinary framework
Résumé
Industry 4.0 promotes the development and the massive use of new technology (e.g., decision support systems (DSS)) to help decision makers to cope the increasingly complexity and uncertainty of the modern manufacturing environment. However, DSS do not always improve decision makers' performance and working conditions (e.g., by reducing their cognitive and emotional workload). An explanation of such adverse effects lies in the approach used to design DSS. To date, the majority of DSS are developed though a techno-centered approach, meaning that the technical specifications are the central concern. Recently, there has also been a growing interest in considering the decision makers' characteristics (i.e., human centered approach). However, efforts to integrate such characteristics into the DSS' design process have not been always successful as designers, usually from the same domain (e.g., informatics, industrial systems), are more guided by the integration of new technologies within a digital system than by considering and meeting the decision makers' real needs. We thus argue that there is an urge in considering both the technical aspects and the decision makers' real needs in the development of DSS using a multidisciplinary approach (e.g., informatics, industrial systems, ergonomics, psychology). However, there is a lack of clear guidelines explaining how to implement such human centered multidisciplinary approach. In this chapter, we therefore intended to describe a three-step human centered multidisciplinary methodology adapted from Harte et al. (2017). We do not intend to propose an absolute solution, but rather to raise questions and solutions to improve the design and the implementation of DSS in a modern manufacturing system. Consequently, the methodology we propose do not claim to be innovative bur rather to make explicit and promote a better integration of the decision makers in the design of a DSS, especially for the operational level, and (ii) to facilitate the cooperation and coordination of multidisciplinary team in the design of such a DSS.