David Romero

Tecnológico de Monterrey | ITESM · Advanced Manufacturing Research Group / Center for Innovation in Design and Technology

[BEST PAPER AWARD] This paper presents early concepts and future projections of the so-called ‘Operator 4.0’, understood as a smart, skilled operator who performs not only cooperative work with robots but also aided work by machines as and if needed by means of human cyber-physical systems, advanced human-machine interaction technologies and adapti...

This paper addresses the potential of smart wearable and collaborative technologies in support of healthier, safer, and more productive shop floor environments during the present and post– coronavirus 2019 pandemic emerging digital manufacturing worlds. It highlights the urgent need to “digitally transform” many high-touch shop floor operations int...

Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown industries all around the world that their current manufacturing systems are not as resilient as expected and therefore many are failing. The workforce is the most agile and flexible manufacturing resource and simultaneously the most fragile one due to its humanity. By making human operators more resil...

This paper explores the emergence of the next cyber/digital frontier for lean manufacturing practices. It focuses on (a) the new capabilities of information and operational technologies (ITs/OTs) for proactively detecting and eliminating potential 'physical waste' in production processes, preventing its manifestation in the real world through power...

This paper discusses Five Management Pillars for Digital Transformation integrating the Lean Thinking Philosophy. It proposes a "Digital Lean Transformation Framework" where its five management pillars-(Digital) Strategic Management, Processes (Re-)Engineering Management, (Digital) Technology Management, Change (People) Management, and (Digital) Ri...

Integrating Industry 4.0 technologies in Lean Manufacturing shop floors is reshaping job profiles, emphasising increased task variety and the demand for diverse skills among workers. The conventional perception of operators solely performing specialised tasks is transforming into one where they are viewed as flexible production resources capable of...

The Industry 5.0 paradigm aims to improve, through a human-centric approach, the performance of the cyber-physical production systems promoted by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. If, on the one hand, the digitalisation promoted by the Industry 4.0 paradigm provides many opportunities for improving the performance of production systems, on the othe...

Industry 4.0/5.0 workplaces are characterized by humans surrounded by massive digitalization, huge data generation, and data-driven management. However, this brings more complexity to the operators as they are exposed to vast amounts of data to reason about as well as to many situations of overwhelming cognitive load, leading them to potentially le...

The emergence of collaborative robots in confined spaces marks a new era in manufacturing and automation. Robots designed to assist human operators in complex and physically demanding tasks are gaining popularity due to their ability to work alongside humans, minimising risks and maximising productivity. However, most applications are in open areas...

The impact of Digital/Smart Technologies on Lean Manufacturing has brought significant improvements in terms of both performance and working conditions for assembly operators. To this matter, one of the aspects that have been most positively affected by this Digital Transformation concerns "Human-Workstation Interaction (HWI)". Whereas before the D...

The field of industrial sustainability is rapidly expanding with new concepts and frameworks emerging almost daily. At the same time, mature ones are being used in new applications and combined with new technologies and methodologies. While these developments are promising, the ambitions, scale, and speed of the change required to meet sustainabili...

The advent of Industry 4.0, over its decade-long evolution, primarily concentrated on digital and smart technologies to enhance production efficiency, often overlooking human involvement and environmental considerations. Despite the recent emergence of Industry 5.0 as a new research paradigm, its exploration is still in its early stages, with limit...

The emerging Industry 5.0 paradigm is initiating changes in different aspects of manufacturing businesses as well as in their products and services. Industry 5.0 pillars – human-centricity, sustainability, and resilience – are guid-ing these changes with the intent to provide a smarter, greener, and digitalized society and market. The human-centric...

Digital transformation of Supply Chains (SCs) is imperative to remain competitive. Suppliers must adapt and digitally integrate into the emerging Digital Supply Chains (DSCs). This review examines how to develop the next-generation Supplier Development Programs (SDPs) in the context of DSCs in terms of the requirements to digitally transform a SC,...

Understanding and analyzing the learning curve of human-based manufacturing operations is highly important for production managers aiming to optimize workforce performance and enhance the productivity of manual and semi-automated manufacturing systems. Effective forecasting of workers’ performance rates based on accurate learning curves is crucial...

The focus of this research is on advancements in HCAI systems for Industry 5.0. Such systems view AI as a critical component for augmenting human work, extending human capabilities within an industrial environment. Thus, they are key enablers for the “Operator 5.0” concept (Romero and Stahre, 2021; Gladysz et al., 2023). The aim of the Research Top...

The University of Alberta and the Tecnológico de Monterrey are working together on creating a common learning platform for the education and training of small manufacturing business owners and their workforce in smart manufacturing technologies and renewed production management approaches for the digitalization and smartification of their shop floo...

This research work demonstrates the value of a “stepwise framework” to facilitate a shift from conventional quality management systems (QMSs) to QMSs 4.0. It uses the IDEF0 modeling methodology and Six Sigma’s DMAIC cycle to structure the steps to be followed to adopt the Quality 4.0 paradigm for QI. It also proves the worth of integrating Six Sigm...

This paper aims at examining how the relationship between research and practice on Operational Excellence (OE) occurs. For that, a qualitative, empirical approach was conducted in which 25 experts (12 academics and 13 practitioners) from both emerging and developed economies were interviewed. Content analysis of the collected data was framed within...

Though Industry 4.0 seemed to begin its life as a competing paradigm to the long established concept of Lean Production, its key enabling technologies present exciting opportunities for advancing the lean and learning transformations of manufacturing firms. Not only do we find that such technologies promise to enhance more traditional, analogue lea...

In the global manufacturing sector, the ever-increasing digital transformation of Supply Chains (SCs) has become imperative, leading to building new digital and analytical capabilities to achieve SC competitiveness. However, building these new capabilities to integrate end-to-end Digital Supply Chains (DSCs) is a major challenge. There is a need to...

Emerging digital and smart technologies, including wearable and collaborative ones, related to the Industry 4.0 paradigm are playing an assisting, collaborative, and augmenting role for the Operator 4.0, and just as in previous industrial revolutions, the nature of work and the workplace for operators on the shop floor is changing. This literature...

More applications of Augmented Reality (AR) in manufacturing industries are introduced every day and while recent research has shown that one of the more popular applications, high-volume assembly instructions, might not offer the best setting for this technology, many other applications exist that do. For assembly, remote guidance or training, rar...

Wire harnesses are vital for any modern automotive vehicle. They control the basic functions in a vehicle, for example, windshield wipers and critical functions such as sensors, cameras, and autopilot functions. Thus, the quality of wire harness assembly is highly important. Today, wire harnesses are usually assembled manually, which creates unergo...

A fundamental competitiveness factor in the wire harness manufacturing industry is the economic aspect. A collaborative robot automation project could be very innovative, but the manufacturer will not invest in the project if it does not produce clear financial returns. The cost-benefit analysis of changing from a manual to a collaborative (human-r...

This paper explores the benefits of digitally enhancing Kanban Lean practice in support of Just-in-Time (JIT) reconfigurable supply processes for increased efficiency and reliability. Ensuring JIT-supply of raw materials and parts is essential to achieve Lean production and reduce inventory storage and capital tied up in unprocessed inventory. Afte...

The industrial journey towards digitalization and sustainability requires an understanding of companies' status and desired state. New business models, like digital servitization, can support the transition from pilots to full implementations on the shop floor and the innovation of the end-to-end value chains. This paper aims to identify the requir...

[BEST PAPER AWARD] To boost revenues and create a lasting competitive advantage in the present global market, an increasing number of manufacturing companies are experimenting with shifting from product-centric offerings to service solutions leveraging digital technologies according to the Industry 4.0 paradigm. This (digital) transformation, known...

This paper investigates manufacturing companies' current and planned usage of collaborative robots along with possible reasons for the observed slow growth in implementing Collaborative Robot Applications (CRAs) in the industry. The paper also discusses whether similarities can be seen in the Gartner Hype Cycle for technology adoption. Findings fro...

A Fifth Industrial Revolution has emerged, referred to as Industry 5.0, which represents a paradigm shift towards the integration of advanced technologies and the latest innovations in manufacturing processes and systems with a new hallmark in mind characterized by three main features: human-centricity, sustainability, and resilience. In the curren...

This paper introduces an approach for creating Metaverse-based software robot (softbot) tutors to train and support impaired Operators 5.0 in emerging Industry 5.0 working environments following the trend of developing more human-centric and inclusive industrial workplaces. It presents a summarized literature review on inclusive softbot tutors in t...

The transition towards Industry 5.0 standards characterized by an increasing and responsible use of digital and smart technologies as well as by the development of more sustainable, human-centric, and resilient industrial systems, requires a careful reflection on the competencies and skills that will be needed in its workforce. Indeed, changing pro...

Wire harness assembly is normally a manual assembly process that poses ergonomic challenges. As a consequence of the rapidly expanding electrification of vehicles and transportation systems, the demand for wire harnesses can be expected to grow radically, further increasing assembly operator challenges. Thus, automating this assembly process is hig...

In order to provide a platform for presenting the state-of-the-art advances on human-centric smart manufacturing, this virtual special issue (VSI) was set up in September 2021. Among 126 submissions, 41 papers have been finally accepted and included in this VSI after rigorous peer review. The accepted papers cover various topics, including Industry...

The machine tool industry plays a major role in the execution of high-quality and efficient complex manufacturing processes. The adoption of digital technologies can transform production systems into more connected, adaptive, efficient, and potentially sustainable systems. A key enabler of this transformation is servitization, a business model that...

Technology-driven Industry 4.0 (I4.0) paradigm combined with human-centrism, sustainability, and resilience orientation, forms the Industry 5.0 (I5.0) paradigm, providing support for the workforce and enabling the Operator 4.0 (O4.0) approach. The I5.0 focuses can face unforeseen challenges, as the applicability and readiness of I4.0 solutions are...

This paper recollects the knowledge, experience, and common sense of Digital Lean researchers and consultants based on a set of open interviews that were used to gather and document their best practice approaches (including principles, methods, and tools) for the implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies to assemble a set of method-based toolboxe...

Production development has for decades concentrated on incremental improvements by exploiting existing manufacturing knowledge to improve existing production systems or adapt them for new product developments. Building up an "ambidextrous innovation" ability, and more specifically in increasing focus on explorative production innovation, is importa...

The Tecnológico de Monterrey (TEC) and the University of Alberta (UofA) are working together on creating a “Smart Factory Lab” to support the hands-on learning of automation, robotization, and digitalization technologies to prepare engineering students for their future roles as “Engineers 4.0” at the emerging smart factories in the Industry 4.0 era...

Dear friends and colleagues, With great pleasure we are inviting you to submit your latest research to the special session ”Next Generation Human-centered Manufacturing and Logistics Systems for the Operator 5.0” we organize at APMS 2023 conference at NTNU (Trondheim, Norway) - https://www.apms-conference.org/ This special session invites contribut...

This paper presents the results of a research work that aimed at investigating the usage of softbots – as digital intelligent software assistants – as a supporting technology to help in excelling smart production management composed of cyber-physical systems (CPS). This work also attempts to differentiate the many equivalent terms used in the liter...

The Logistics 4.0 research stream has been heavily focused on the use of new digital technologies to achieve higher degrees of productivity and flexibility in logistics processes and operations. Whereas in many cases impacting positively the business performance, their introduction also affects the nature of the work of human logistics operators. F...

There is limited scientific and grey literature studying the phenomenon of how the current job profiles are being affected by Industry 4.0 technologies at the operational level. This paper aims to answer the following question: how can the evolution of Workforce 4.0 job profiles be analyzed from a job-task perspective concerning the adoption of sma...

This paper employs a real-time, open-question qualitative survey method to investigate the past, present, and future of the Lean Industry 4.0 field. A major trend is found in researchers moving from technological backgrounds such as engineering, or other STEM subjects, into more socio-technical departments and developing interests in wider areas su...

Products and assets are becoming increasingly “smart”, e.g., mechatronic, electronic, or cyber-physical. In the lack of fully reliable wireless solutions, extensive wiring and wire bundling into wire harnesses are needed. This has manufacturing implications, leading to increasingly complex wire harness assembly processes, where numerous components,...

Digital Transformation provides both value creation and co-creation opportunities within manufacturing firms, enabling these to develop new and more efficient 'digitally-enabled' value propositions. However, there remain notable gaps in communicating these digital opportunities (value) throughout a firm, creating barriers to justifying (digital) tr...

This paper employs a real-time, open-question qualitative survey method to investigate the past, present, and future of the Lean Industry 4.0 field. A major trend is found in researchers moving from technological backgrounds such as engineering, or other STEM subjects, into more socio-technical departments and developing interests in wider areas su...

[BEST PAPER AWARD] The importance of Visual Management (or "Mieruka" as it is called in Japanese) has been largely demonstrated over the last few years, especially when it comes to the creation and management of data-rich environments for effective and efficient data-driven decision-making, such as digital lean smart factories. Although the differe...

Poka-Yoke devices have always been regarded by lean manufacturing companies as essential quality control and assurance tools to support efficient and effective manufacturing processes and procedures. Thanks to their ease of use and low cost, these devices help maintain high-quality standards and also encourage organisations to undertake Kaizen cont...

Global sustainability challenges are increasingly constraining and driving industrial development. Eco-efficiency and circular economy are powerful concepts providing guiding principles to achieve superior environmental performance. However, they are not systematically integrated into the design, planning , development, management and improvement o...

In the contention of the current industrial landscape, an increasing number of manufacturing firms are experimenting with the transition from product-centric offerings to service-based value concepts and product-service bundles as high-value integrated customer solutions to increase their revenues and build sustainable competitive advantages; a phe...

This two-volume set, IFIP AICT 663 and 664, constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the International IFIP WG 5.7 Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems, APMS 2022, held in Gyeongju, South Korea in September 2022. The 139 full papers presented in these volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 153 sub...

In this state-of-the-art review, the authors explore the recent advancements in the topics of learning curve models and their estimation methods for manual operations and processes as well as the data collection and monitoring technologies used for supporting these. This objective is achieved by answering the following three research questions: (RQ...

This two-volume set, IFIP AICT 663 and 664, constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the International IFIP WG 5.7 Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems, APMS 2022, held in Gyeongju, South Korea in September 2022. The 139 full papers presented in these volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 153 sub...

Manufacturing companies are facing two major trends affecting their business operations: "automatization" and "collaboration". Companies have realized that they still need humans on the shop floor besides the availability of high levels of automation solutions in the market. This realization has created a new Industrial Revolution known as "Industr...

The article presents a study on tracking solutions based on localization and telecommunication technologies in Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) environments oriented on Operator 4.0. Nowadays, the smart industry concept is mainly a technology-driven solution, which is slowly shifting towards a value-driven approach. This value...

Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) are increasingly undergoing a transition into the offering of Product-Service System (PSS) solutions. This transition has proven to be a difficult challenge characterised by inadequate contract decisions due to cost under-estimations and performance overpromises. Despite the relevance of cost estimation for t...

This paper presents the current state of research for and an outlook of Gamification for Manufacturing (GfM), particularly manufacturing operations in industrial settings. This in-depth analysis examines the recent trends in published conceptual design works, case studies, experiments, and literature reviews that are shaping the future design work...

The wire harness assembly process is a complicated manufacturing activity, which is becoming more complex because of the evolving nature of mechatronic and electronic products that require more connectors, sensors, controllers, communication networking, etc. Furthermore, the demand for wire harnesses continues to grow in all industries worldwide as...

Supply chain maturity models urge increased collaboration among supply chain participants to achieve sustained competitive advantage through operational end-to-end visibility and transparency. Digital solutions provide the tools and technologies to enable Digital Supply Networks through inter-connectivity among supply network partners. A major chal...

https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-manufacturing-systems/call-for-papers/human-centered-smart-manufacturing-trends-issues-and-challenges. Keywords included but not limited: 1) Design and implementation of human-centric smart manufacturing systems, 2) Novel human-machine interface and interaction in human-centric manufacturing systems, 3)...

Smart Manufacturing, Industry 4.0, and Digital Transformation are reshaping the manufacturing sector on a global scale. These initiatives are predominantly technology-driven and enabled, and supported by the so-called "smart technologies". In this book chapter, we take on a sustainability perspective to understand the impact of smart manufacturing...

The aim of the Special Session 08 at 27th IEEE ETFA 2022 conference is to bring together researchers and practitioners from the industry and academia and provide them with a platform to report on recent advances and developments in the newly emerging areas of human-centred Fifth industrial revolution. Based on the aforementioned trends, manufacturi...

The aim of this Special Issue of Sustainability is to present an overview of new and renewed manufacturing paradigms for sustainable production. Responsible production and consumption is just one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), yet, being coupled with 16 additional goals, it promises to have a significant impact on the...

Objective: A systematic literature review was conducted to identify relevant ergonomic and safety factors for designing collaborative workspaces in industrial settings. Background: The growing use of smart and collaborative robots in manufacturing brings some challenges for the human-robot interaction design. Human-centered manufacturing solutions...

In the pursuit of increasing efficiency, productivity and flexibility at production lines and their corresponding workstations, manufacturing companies have started to heavily invest in "collaborative workspaces" where close interaction between humans and robots promises to lead to these goals that neither can achieve on their own. Therefore, it is...

The digitalisation or virtualisation of lab equipment in higher education promises numerous benefits for all those involved. Economic benefits from sharing lab infrastructures, convenient remote access to labs anytime and anywhere, as well as the sharing and linking of lab-based lectures are just some of the advantages that come to mind when thinki...

The purpose of this literature review is to examine how Digital Lean Manufacturing is viewed in the academic literature and how it is being operationalized. We reviewed +100 scientific articles to identify what has been written about Digital Lean Manufacturing. There appears to have been two waves of scientific research on the theme of Digital Lean...

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is transforming the roles of humans, technology and work in production systems. Although the level of automation on shop floors increases, it is not always feasible or effective to assign the execution of production tasks to autonomous systems. Where total automation is ineffective, new forms of Human-Technology Int...

This paper reports on a research work conducted within the framework of the SUSTAIN project aiming to unleash and operationalize the potential of customer centricity and sustainability requirements. More specifically, the paper presents a Decision Support System (DSS) intended to support the alignment of aggregate production planning with customer...

The purpose of this research is to propose a new facility layout for an Indian textile company based on best practice guidelines for the adaptation and use of Systematic Layout Planning (SLP) and Lean Manufacturing (LM) concepts. Initially, a literature review is carried out regarding layout design and LM. Next, during practical application, an ind...

Modular Microfactories

Challenges and Opportunities for Manufacturing SMEs in Developing Countries

While previous Industrial Revolutions have increasingly seen the human as a cog in the system, each step reducing the cognitive content of work, Industry 4.0 contrarily views the human as a knowledge worker putting increased focus on cognitive skills and specialised craftsmanship. The opportunities that technological advancement provide are in abun...

Despite advances in Industry 4.0 technologies, supply chains have fallen short in enabling agile supply chain responsiveness. Conceptually, the enablers of connectivity, visibility, and transparency are well defined, yet their operationalization remains a challenge. In this paper, we analyse a successful case study in the domestic electrical machin...

Digital technologies are disrupting servitization in manufacturing firms. In the last decade, manufacturing firms transform their business models from traditional offers of physical goods to digital solutions for their customers. In this paper, we investigate the transformation of digital servitization in manufacturing firms. We challenge relations...

Digital Twins (DT) represent one of the most powerful technologies related to Industry 4.0 implementation. Combined with the advances in Computer Science and Production Management, DTs have become an emerging trend in many applications. Despite the DT potentials, Industry 4.0 is pushing companies to adopt digital solutions that provide higher human...

The five-volume set IFIP AICT 630, 631, 632, 633, and 634 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International IFIP WG 5.7 Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems, APMS 2021, held in Nantes, France, in September 2021.* The 378 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 529 submissions. They discuss artificial in...

The five-volume set IFIP AICT 630, 631, 632, 633, and 634 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International IFIP WG 5.7 Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems, APMS 2021, held in Nantes, France, in September 2021.* The 378 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 529 submissions. They discuss artificial in...

The five-volume set IFIP AICT 630, 631, 632, 633, and 634 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International IFIP WG 5.7 Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems, APMS 2021, held in Nantes, France, in September 2021.* The 378 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 529 submissions. They discuss artificial in...

The five-volume set IFIP AICT 630, 631, 632, 633, and 634 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International IFIP WG 5.7 Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems, APMS 2021, held in Nantes, France, in September 2021.* The 378 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 529 submissions. They discuss artificial in...

The five-volume set IFIP AICT 630, 631, 632, 633, and 634 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International IFIP WG 5.7 Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems, APMS 2021, held in Nantes, France, in September 2021.* The 378 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 529 submissions. They discuss artificial in...