Deploying Robots in a Production Environment: A Study on Temporal Transitions of Workers’ Experiences

Abstract

Understanding a worker’s perspective when introducing robots at humans’ workplaces is crucial to improve human-robot interaction in production environments. Taking a temporal perspective on workers’ experiences with robots, we explored expectations and general attitudes as well as actual feelings and reflections regarding the deployment of robots in a semiconductor factory. To evoke reports on workers’ experiences, we applied a narrative interview technique with 10 workers. To characterize the temporal transition of workers’ experiences, we distinguished between three phases in the deployment process: expectations before the deployment of the robots, familiarization with the robots, and experienced consequences of working with the robots. We present characteristic experiences of each phase and describe how these experiences change over time regarding the perceived functional value of the robots, work organization, feelings, social environment, and attitudes. Overall, our research contributes leverage points towards a more positive experience of workers when deploying robots in a factory.