Mental Strain as Field of Action in the 4th Industrial Revolution

Abstract Industrial revolutions have changed the society by a development of key-technologies. The vision of the 4 th industrial revolution is triggered by technological concepts and solutions to realize a combination of the economy of scale with the economy of scope. This aim is also known as mass customization and is characterized by handling a high level of complexity with a total network integration of products and production processes. These technology-driven changes also lead to new fields of activity in the industrial science and the occupational psychology. The 4 th industrial revolution intends to implement the collaboration between humans and machines. At the same time, processes are locally controlled and planned. For humans, this results to new work items. Resulting psychological effects should be investigated. This paper classifies the 4 th industrial revolution systematically and describes future changes for employees. It derives the necessity of labor- psychological analysis of new key technologies like cyber physical systems. A theoretical foundation of a psychological work requirement analysis by using the VERA method is given. Finally, results of a preliminary study are carried out that will give the base for further studies.

[1]  Uwe Dombrowski,et al.  Concpt for a Cyber Physical Assembly System , 2013, 2013 IEEE International Symposium on Assembly and Manufacturing (ISAM).

[2]  Heiner Dunckel,et al.  Handbuch psychologischer Arbeitsanalyseverfahren , 1999 .

[3]  D. Rousseau.  Technological differences in job characteristics, employee satisfaction, and motivation: A synthesis of job design research and sociotechnical systems theory , 1977 .

[4]  A. N. Leont’ev,et al.  Activity, consciousness, and personality , 1978 .

[5]  D. C. Coleman.  Myth, history, and the Industrial Revolution , 1992 .

[6]  Wolfgang Wahlster,et al.  SemProM - Foundations of Semantic Product Memories for the Internet of Things , 2013, SemProM.

[7]  Thomas Herrmann,et al.  Socio-Technical Systems: A Meta-Design Perspective , 2011, Int. J. Sociotechnology Knowl. Dev..

[8]  Manfred Broy.  Cyber-Physical Systems , 2010 .

[9]  Michael C. Jensen,et al.  The Modern Industrial Revolution, Exit, and the Failure of Internal Control Systems , 1993, A Theory of the Firm.

[10]  Thomas B. Sheridan,et al.  Humans and Automation: System Design and Research Issues , 2002 .

[11]  Edward A. Lee.  Cyber Physical Systems: Design Challenges , 2008, 2008 11th IEEE International Symposium on Object and Component-Oriented Real-Time Distributed Computing (ISORC).

[12]  S. H. Appelbaum.  Socio‐technical systems theory: an intervention strategy for organizational development , 1997 .

[13]  F. Geels,et al.  Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways , 2007 .

[14]  Florian Michahelles,et al.  Architecting the Internet of Things , 2011 .

[15]  Chris W. Clegg,et al.  Advancing socio-technical systems thinking: a call for bravery. , 2014, Applied ergonomics.