During our industrial pilots we will demonstrate the possibility to increase average productivity per worker by 10%. This rise in productivity is mainly attributable to workers’ change in attitudes and aptitudes (i.e. excluding purely “mechanical” productivity increases due to greater material or energy efficiencies, improved machine utilisation or improved logistic). Factories adopting one or more of FACTS4WORKERS solution elements will be able to realise a 5% productivity increase per worker as a benefit from our project’s results.

The manufacturing workforce around the world is shrinking. By contributing to the competitiveness of European manufacturing we safeguard against a loss of global market share, which will mean keeping jobs in Europe. In short: By increasing productivity we will be able to retain manufacturing in Europe against a decrease in the size of the working population. The concepts developed by FACTS4WORKERS will present the current workforce with opportunities to develop and make use of skills that enhance their employability.

According the Treaty of Maastricht73 the scope of conditions include: Pay and benefits; the organization of work; training, skills and employability; working time and work-life balance; and health, safety and wellbeing. FACTS4WORKERS promotes the adoption of a work organisation style associated with better working conditions and higher job satisfaction levels. We believe that workers who have embraced the opportunities provided by the inclusion of more knowledge-work elements in factory-floor jobs will have greatly increased career prospects.

We aim to increase average job satisfaction by 0.5 points on a 5 point scale for the 6 facets supervision, contingent rewards, operating procedures, co-working, Nature of work and communication of work where the implementation of our concepts has a direct influence. In line with our assumptions on impacts on productivity we therefore estimate that FACTS4WORKERS can increase job satisfaction for 800,000 European workers in 2025, by at least 0.25 point on the 6-point Spector JSS scale.

Attractiveness is based not on fact but on perception. The current stereotypical perception of factory work is that it is monotonous, physically challenging while intellectually empty, and sometimes outright unhealthy or dangerous. The workplaces and working conditions FACTS4WORKERS will demonstrate, and the subsequent adoption of our concepts in industry will contribute to changing that perception. We will collaborate in our communication efforts with other projects, and other bodies that seek to change the perception of factory work, and it is likely that the content and materials we produce will have a reachthrough effect to their audiences.

The success of ICT projects in general is very dependent on user acceptance, and smart factory projects are no different. Many smart factory ICT projects will mix elements of our worker-centric concepts with other, more “mechanical” process improvements (e.g. enhanced logistics). The inclusion of our concepts into a project will increase user acceptance of the non-worker-centric parts too, thereby realising productivity increases and material/energy efficiency improvements that are additional to those attributable to worker motivation, skills and work organisation only.

Apart from the direct economic impact of an increase in worker productivity, there will also be more indirect benefits: An increase in worker (innovation) skills and motivation will lead to a rise in the quality of goods produced. “Made in Europe” is already globally recognised as a sign of quality, but as quality is rising elsewhere Europe needs to stay ahead of the curve. A workforce more attuned to innovation will furthermore lead to improvements in production equipment and production systems. With Europe being a major exporter of production equipment this will bring net benefits to the EU Industrial Machinery sector.