Andrea Bettoni

• MS
• Senior Lecturer-Researcher at University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland

Human Robot Collaboration (HRC) has gained significant attention, particularly within manufacturing scenarios. Collaborative robots (cobots), though designed to work closely with humans, often struggle due to their limited ability to predict and adapt to human intentions, which hampers effective and fluid interactions. To address this challenge, th...

Integrating collaborative automation in manufacturing often fails because it neglects workers' expectations, which leads to insufficient acceptance and negative employee experiences. This paper presents a comprehensive human-centred methodology for evaluating collaborative automation systems by examining four key dimensions: task, automation, peopl...

Collaborative robotics possesses the potential to revolutionise industrial automation by offering affordable and accessible solutions with reasonable skill requirements. However, identifying the most valuable and appropriate applications for this technology remains a challenge. This study conducted a comprehensive literature review to analyse the e...

This work proposes an experiment setup and its protocols to investigate the impact of cobot's size, speed and collaboration modes on different human factors including trust, propensity to trust, anxiety, and mental workload. The setup and the protocols supported the execution of different experiments where the 29 participants were asked to complete...

In Industry 5.0, worker well-being is paramount for organizational resilience and sustainability. Physical fatigue, work-life balance, and job competency significantly impact worker welfare and, therefore, efficiency and effectiveness. This study collects data in different industrial scenarios using non-invasive wearable devices for dynamic data an...

This work showcases an innovative application case of human-robot collaboration in an industrial environment, a scenario less commonly observed than in research settings. The focus is on a collaborative work cell implemented in a manufacturing context, where assembly and screwdriving tasks on a heavy and large part are conducted under the pace dete...

The fourth industrial revolution has driven companies of all sizes to embrace digitalization, recognizing the potential of AI technologies for data analysis and real-time decision-making. However, the adoption of AI by manufacturing SMEs faces challenges related to cost, accessibility, and the need for expertise. To address these challenges, this c...

The development of B2B platforms has led to the diffusion of business models (BMs) based on the concept of sharing economy. In recent years, multisided platform BMs have become an important way of creating and capturing value even though the phenomenon remains undertheorized (Zhao et al., Long Range Planning 53(4):101892, 2020). Multisided platform...

In Industry 5.0, worker well-being is paramount for organizational resilience and sustainability. Physical fatigue, work-life balance, and job competency significantly impact worker welfare and, therefore, efficiency and effectiveness. This study collects data in different industrial scenarios using non-invasive wearable devices for dynamic data an...

In the last decade, the manufacturing domain has been marked by a veritable flood of technological breakthroughs. Collaborative robotics, in particular, has enabled workstations to be shared between humans and their robotic counterparts. The ability of collaborative robots to work side-by-side with humans has opened up new possibilities for task an...

Purpose - Manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have already noticed the tangible benefits offered by artificial intelligence (AI). Several approaches have been proposed with a view to support them in the processes entailed in this innovation path. These include multisided platforms created to enable the connection between SMEs an...

Investment costs and lack of knowledge are often cited as barriers to adopting collaborative robots, especially for smaller businesses with limited budgets. Cobots demand specialised knowledge and skills not only for their installation and programming but also for effectively maintaining and adapting them to accommodate various product types. This...

In the second year of the KITT4SME project, SUPSI developed a survey to investigate the adoption of collaborative robotics. This activity, together with the collaboration with the TRINITY Robotics project and the activities performed within the BRILLIANT demonstrator (TRINITY open calls 2022), leads to the development of the KITT4SME report 2022. T...

The adoption of wearable devices is crucial in Industry 5.0 applications, but the devices' selection is cumbersome for practitioners and researchers due to the wide availability of models in the market. This work proposes a methodology based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process method to support the wearable devices selection in Industry 5.0 applicati...

In the context of the Industry 4.0 approach, applications and solutions supporting monitoring, simulation, optimisation and decision-making in production systems are exponentially growing. These solutions are commonly built on digital twins, i.e., comprehensive, structured and effective digital representations of the production system and its entit...

Today, there are many examples in the literature where digital copies of machines, devices, products or entire production systems are used to improve performance, make predictions and take decisions. However, humans have been so far excluded from these digital representations, even though their influence on process quality, performance and continuo...

The need to comply with shorter product life-cycles, diversified market demands and increased global competitiveness is leading to a dramatic increase in production systems requirements in terms of flexibility and responsiveness. Industry 4.0 and its push for digitalisation are becoming a pervasive reality impacting almost each phase of the company...

In the first months of the KITT4SME project, SUPSI, WUT and Ginkgo Analytics collaborate to realise the KITT4SME report 2021. This report includes: - a sum-up of a methodology to assess AI readiness and maturity level in SMEs; - the results obtained through a survey investigating AI adoption that involved 36 European manufacturing companies; - a se...

Over the last years, the flourishing of the B2B platforms led to the diffusion of business models inspired by the sharing economy. Manufacturing as a service (MaaS) is a paradigm that is often cited in this context, even though literature on the topic is still scarce as well as empirical evidence. This paper contributes to this field discussing the...

Today literature proposes several models to assess the level of digitisation of a company. However, digitisation includes innumerable elements and aspects that require either models that are too complex to be easily applied by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) or too high-level to provide significant hints for improvement. This paper proposes a m...

Today literature proposes several models to assess the level of digitisation of a company. However, digitisation includes innumerable elements and aspects that require either models that are too complex to be easily applied by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) or too high-level to provide significant hints for improvement. This paper proposes a m...

Over the last years, the flourishing of the B2B platforms led to the diffusion of business models inspired by the sharing economy. Manufacturing as a service (MaaS) is a paradigm that is often cited in this context, even though literature on the topic is still scarce as well as empirical evidence. This paper contributes to this field discussing the...

Multiple and diverse factory digital twins have been proposed in the literature. However, despite the recognized growing importance of workers in smart and autonomous industrial settings, such models still lack or oversimplify human representation. Human digital twins must include human monitoring and behavioural data and models based on psychophys...

This paper proposes an adaptive human-machine collaboration paradigm based on machine learning. Human-machine collaboration requires more than letting humans and machines interact according to fixed rules. A decision-maker is needed to assess production status and to activate adaptations that improve productivity and workers’ well-being. The propos...

This paper presents an industrial case of applying co-creation principles for the design of smart industry 4.0 solution within the context of three distinct end-user organizations ranging from aeronautics, robot and furniture manufacturing. The purpose was to develop a digital solution that monitors the operators and their environment to recognise...

The highly disruptive transformation that digital platforms are imposing on entire sectors of the economy, along with the broad digitalization of industrial business processes, is having an impact on supply chains around the world. To take advantage of this new aggregated market paradigm new business models with a heavy focus on servitization are c...

The digitalization of industrial processes together with the broad integration of IoT infrastructures across production systems, are drastically impacting manufacturing value chains and the business models built on the top of them. Starting from the idea of dematerializing production resources and of embracing servitization, this paper describes th...

The integration of IoT infrastructures across production systems, together with the extensive digitalisation of industrial processes, are drastically impacting manufacturing value chains and the business models built on the top of them. By exploiting these capabilities companies are evolving the nature of their businesses shifting value proposition...

The come to power of the sharing economy paradigm has incentivized the adoption of service-based business models largely relying on digital platforms providing the infrastructure and the ecosystems to sustain market uptake. The manufacturing domain isn’t exempted from this trend, witnessing the growing launch of digital platforms with the aim of sh...

Emerging factory digitization, along with the increased automation levels it promotes, represents a unique opportunity that manufacturing enterprises must seize. By distributing once centralized decision-making through an ecosystem of smart factory objects, enterprises will be able to increase their productivity, responsiveness and quality levels....

Despite increasing automation levels and digital solutions, production systems still very much rely on the inescapable contribution of the human factor. The changing relationship between man, the technological system and the organization framework together with the increased complexity result in high risks for workers’ safety and their psychophysic...

This work illustrates the results obtained integrating the most recent laser scanner within machine tools for precision machining. The main aspects addressed include an in-depth analysis of currently available devices and their test on a specially adapted measuring machine, the use of the same axis that move the tool to achieve the scan and the use...

The traditional manufacturing concept puts tasks at the center of the production system and the workers’ role is rather passive. However, the workplaces of the future will be worker-centric instead of task-centric, and the role of the workers is expected to increase, leading to an optimization of the production performance. In this manner, it is of...

A methodology for the inclusion of sustainability assessment in the design of supply chains is introduced, with the aim of taking into account a sustainability perspective in logistics and industrial allocation choices. The presented approach is based on the initial collection and organization of data related to all stages of the product life cycle...

Nowadays social phenomena like ageing, the increase of obese people and diabetic people and the major sensitivity towards disabled introduce new social requirements for advanced products such as customized work and sport wear. This opens up opportunities for offering bundles of products and services that, relying on embedded sensors, allow the user...

The new point of view in which factory and workers are seen is the person at the centre of the production system, so employees should be involved in job design and task balancing processes. The advantages coming by this paradigm shift, from the task-centric organization to the worker-centric factory is doubtless the high correlation among job and w...

The human dimension is growing in importance in the cul- tural and scientific debate surrounding the arising of workplace and fac- tory of the future visions. Having people at the centre of the factory is already recognized as a main enabler for making the most out of their skills and capacities while at the same time achieving an environment that...

The book is the result of years of research on Mass Customization and Sustainability and proposes a set of tools to quantify the impact of the choices made for manufacture consumer products, and as a result limit the effects on the environment, economy and society. To adapt to global competitive pressures, manufacturers must develop methods and ena...

The term “mass customization,” abridged with MC, was anticipated by Stan Davis in the book, “Future Perfect,” in 1987: “the same large number of customers can be reached as in mass markets… and simultaneously they can be treated individually as in the customized markets of pre-industrial economies.”

In the previous chapters, we have provided means to answer a set of fundamental questions: how can a mass customization implementation be set up? What kind of production system is needed? What channels are the most suitable for tracking the targeted customer segment? How will this solution perform as far as sustainability is concerned?

Several different research initiatives have been funded by the European Commission in order to provide solutions to the challenges proposed in this work.

Mass Customization refers to customer co-design process of products and services, which meets the needs of each individual customer with regard to certain product features. All operations are performed within a fixed solution space, characterized by stable but still flexible and responsive processes.

The concept of sustainability, in the way we understand the term now, first appeared in 1987, within the Brundtland Report, defined as “to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Later, as the concept gained popularity, hundreds of definitions were proposed, in academ...

The introduction of new production paradigm often implies a comprehensive redesign of products and of the supply chain producing them. This paper presents a theoretical framework allowing to identify the challenges and requirements imposed by a certain paradigm, specify which supply chain actors are impacted by each enabling factor and finally to d...

The sustainable mass customization – mass customization for sustainability (S-MC-S) assessment model is meant to measure the impact on sustainability of the decisions taken in the design phase of a mass-customized solution space. This chapter describes the development of the two building blocks constituting the assessment model: the sustainability...

Supply chain design, management and assessment are key success drivers in nowadays globalised economy. With the advent of new paradigms such as sustainability and mass customization, a new generation of tools is required. This work presents a supply chain simulation tool that allows to take into account the specificity of mass customized markets, e...

Sustainability is an emerging factor companies are called for considering in their business according to the growing people-awareness about the impact of their behaviour as customers against environmental, social and economic issues. However, companies seldom manage to focus on sustainability all along the design and decisional process due to lack...

To adapt to global competitive pressures, European Industry must develop methods and enabling technologies towards a personalized, customer oriented and sustainable manufacturing [1]. To this end, a key question to be addressed is whether Mass Customization can be regarded as one of the main driving forces to achieve effective Sustainability, or a...

Mass customization strategy is applied by firms in order to make them more customer-oriented and make each individual customer a source of opportunity and hence profit for the firm. Sustainability on the other hand brings not only eco-efficiency for the company, but also has a great impact on economic efficiency and social perspective of the firm....