Industry 5.0: Integrating Humans and Technology for a Sustainable Future

The term Industry 5.0 has received much attention since its introduction. Formally proposed by the European Union (EU) in 2021, (1) it is the name given to a new way of integrating technology and humans in the industrial workplace. The goal is to create a sustainable process that benefits both workers and enterprises while reducing the impact on the environment.

Building on Innovation

The industrial market has used robots for over half a century, relying on their many advantages to improve mass production. They can perform tasks with great precision without growing tired, thus relieving human workers from tasks that are repetitive or potentially dangerous. 

Therefore, robots can deliver excellent efficiency on the production line, but they cannot provide flexibility. The first industrial robots were very limited in their ability to adapt to new situations. While the latest generation of industrial robots is vastly more capable, they still require reprogramming when faced with new situations.

For the last several decades, the manufacturing world has been integrating robots into factory control systems—a move compared to a fourth industrial revolution and named Industry 4.0. In this new scheme, all elements of the production line are linked, from the smallest sensor on the factory floor to the office network. Information is shared both up and down the network, allowing managers to create a real-time simulation of the operation. This creates a smart factory that can respond to new circumstances far more quickly than previously possible. The result is a more flexible manufacturing process that is able to match customers' rapidly changing demands.

Despite the additional flexibility that technology integration affords smart factories, robots are still only as capable as the programming they receive. They perform efficiently in their defined structure, but their inability to contend with an unstructured or unusual occurrence can bring production to a halt.

This is true of many automated processes. When a production line stops, it is rarely due to a breakdown or fault. Instead, it is more often because automated machinery is faced with a situation in which it does not know how to act. In a recent interview with Mouser, Erik Nieves, founder of the innovative company Plus One Robotics, summarized this situation perfectly: “When a robot stops, it’s not broken—it’s confused.” (2)

These exceptions create an environment in which one tiny variation can stop production. Even with the enormous expansion in the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), control systems will struggle to respond to these exceptions when they first occur.

The Fifth Industrial Revolution

These circumstances have led to the next major change in the manufacturing world: Industry 5.0. However, in contrast with the innovations of the previous revolution, Industry 5.0 places human operators at the heart of the process.

This emphasis on humans is one of the most interesting aspects of Industry 5.0, but it reaches beyond simply improving efficiency or flexibility. It is rare for a body such as the EU to highlight an industrial innovation, but in doing so, it emphasizes the role of technology beyond factory walls. The results of this technology are seen in what the EU has identified as the pillars of Industry 5.0: resilience, human-centricity, and sustainability.

Resilience

The first pillar is resilience. Because highly automated operations come with challenges of inflexibility, the limited intelligence of robots and machinery creates a brittle process. Building resilience means creating the ability to respond to random events or exceptional circumstances. Despite the power of modern AI systems, they rely on data to learn how to react to specific events. In contrast, the human mind is capable of remarkable speed when faced with an unusual situation; it can perceive nuance and use intuition to find a resolution. 

By combining human workers with automated equipment, a manufacturing process can benefit from the advantages of both while being isolated from their weaknesses. In a concept known as supervised autonomy, machines can handle routine tasks quicker and with greater accuracy than human operators can. However, when an exceptional situation arises, humans can use intuition and lateral thinking to anticipate and overcome potential stoppages before they become a problem. This builds resilience: the ability to adapt, react, and learn to create a stable working environment.

Sustainability

The second pillar encourages strategies that create long-lasting processes. Industry must operate within an environment with limited resources and energy, and it has a key role to play in reducing our dependence on consumption. This includes the efficient employment of the resources it needs and the development of new and innovative ways to make those resources reusable.

The lateral-thinking capabilities of the human brain allow workers to monitor consumption while also allowing their imagination to identify potential improvements. Human workers create a flexible workplace, one in which processes can undergo constant development in ways that machines cannot envisage. 

Sustainability also looks beyond the immediate need for efficiency and responsible use of resources. It highlights that the well-being of human operators has a direct impact on productivity. By making humans central to industry and allowing them to use their experience, workplaces become more engaging and rewarding places to be. Technology reduces humans' workloads and creates an environment that promotes long-term well-being and a more sustainable industry.

Human-Centricity

The final pillar focuses on the human workers themselves. Human-centricity makes it clear that humans are more than simply components in the control system. Instead, this pillar identifies workers' welfare as a key facet of Industry 5.0. At the simplest level, the use of technology eases the burden for the operator. This could mean reducing the need for workers to oversee the repetitive tasks that contribute to worker fatigue.

At a higher level, human-centricity provides the opportunity for human workers to make the most of their talents, skills, and experience. While ML can adapt quickly to new situations, it still requires data to provide the lessons. The human brain can find solutions, even in situations previously unencountered, by using lateral thinking and imagination. Human workers can identify new avenues of opportunity by combining these qualities with prior experience, even if from vastly different situations. It is not yet possible to program machines with the same level of experience.

Ultimately, Industry 5.0 is as much about empowering human workers to fulfill their potential as it is about creating efficient processes. It uses automation and AI not to replace humans but as tools to enhance their effectiveness. It helps companies make the most of their human workforce, allowing them to further develop their skills and enrich their lives with a more rewarding work experience.

Humans and Machines Working Side-by-Side

Industry 5.0 paints a picture of human workers operating in collaboration with technology, with the most obvious example being the use of robots. Traditionally, robots have been kept separate from human workers for safety reasons. For example, the automotive industry has clearly separated human workers from robots by function. Operations such as welding and painting—often assigned to autonomous robots—are conducted in isolated areas. Tasks that require the skills of human workers, such as wiring and final assembly, generally use few autonomous machines.

The growth of edge computing and edge AI, both of which place sophisticated controls close to the machine they manage, creates a more dynamic environment. Shorter transmission distances reduce latency (i.e., the delay caused by the need to send, receive, and process an instruction). With reduced latency, robots can respond more quickly, enabling them to work safely alongside their human counterparts. This has allowed the creation of a new generation of collaborative robots (cobots) that are finding their way onto the factory floor.

There are other, less obvious ways to integrate humans into the industrial workplace. One solution is to program machines to perform autonomously so that human workers can concentrate on unusual situations. With the growth of high-speed communications, human oversight can be conducted remotely. A worker does not need to enter a potentially dangerous factory floor environment but can still provide the supervision that the machines require to operate.

An alternative solution does not employ machine intelligence at all. Instead, it uses technology to enhance human workers' own capabilities to make them more effective. In one example, an operator tried to develop a robotic system to handle a range of non-standard packages. Despite considerable investment, they found that there was no substitute for a human worker's ability to adapt. 

Conclusion

Industry 5.0 builds on the foundations of previous innovations. It uses the autonomy of Industry 4.0 but enhances it with the flexibility that only human experience can provide. Far from replacing workers, innovations such as AI are simply tools that enhance humans' capabilities. As such, human workers will play a role on the factory floor for many years to come.

(1)https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/308407
(2) Erik Nieves, personal communication.