Collaborative Decision-Making for Human-Technology Interaction - A Case Study Using an Automated Water Bottling Plant

Abstract

Abstract The Fourth Industrial Revolution places different rapidly advancing technologies at the centre of developing autonomous systems. Previous and current research focus on the developing and testing state-of-the-art technologies related to an autonomous environment. However, most industrial environments in the South Africa, and many other developing countries, are still making use of mixed environments. In mixed environments, automated systems and humans need to collaborate for the completion of a process. Currently, there exists very little research on how a collaborative decision-making process can be developed such that the worker’s acceptance and adaptation to the process is taken into cognizance. This research identifies the lack of collaborative decision-making processes as a research gap. This paper focuses on the research done in this field with an extensive literature review, followed by a review of potential models for human technology interaction. The paper then uses the case study of an automated water bottling plant to advance the study in collaborative decision making. The paper concludes by discussing the advantages of collaborative decision.