Assessment of motivation among workers in technology assistive production scenarios

Abstract

Digital tools and the rise of automation have made the shop floor knowledge intensive. Human beings still retain their importance on the production floor, but their role is being reimagined with more focus on creativity, innovation and problem-solving skills. Thus, technology is being developed in a way that augments the traditional workers capabilities by facilitating human-machine interaction. While this seems straightforward in theory, it is important to acknowledge the existence socio-technical barriers which need to be eradicated before such solutions can be successfully implemented on a large scale. Therefore, this thesis is aimed towards understanding the motivation of the workers and the perceived benefits of adopting high technology solutions on the shop floor. The study is part of a larger European project called Facts4Workers (F4W) which is dedicated towards development and evaluation of human centric smart tools for production workers. The data collection involves feedback from workers in six different production companies spread throughout the European Union. The data was then applied to Self Determination Theory (SDT) of motivation and then compared with a control group to find it’s applicability based on high technology intervention. Results indicate that the F4W group demonstrated higher levels of competency, autonomy, relatedness and hence higher motivation when compared to the control group. The findings are of relevance both for companies and managers willing to adopt such technical solutions, and also for academicians interested in exploring motivation among workers.