Competences

Aims of the network

The extensive introduction of robotics in manufacturing industry has been a fact in the last decades. Most of capacities that envisage higher production performance levels are in the field of artificial intelligence applied to manufacturing tasks. However, some social aspects of automation are still not yet solved. Some deals with ergonomic design, but most deals with responsibility, situation awareness, risk assessment and quality of working life. In safer cooperative working conditions are relevant topics under the research topics expertise of “social implications of robotics”.

Sampaio, J, Moniz AB.  2007.  Assessing Human and Technological Dimensions in Virtual Team's Operational Competences, 09/2007. :1-14., Monte de Caparica: IET Abstract

Cognitive task automation may lead to over trust, complacency and loss of the necessary work environment situation awareness. This is a major constraint in complex work organizations teamwork, ending up into an operational gap, between system developments and its understanding and usability, by operators. This document presents a summary of the main results of author’s research on operational decision processes and occupational competences, applied to the air traffic control operational reality. Introducing a human/technological complementary approach to virtual team’s conceptualisation, the results show there is a dimension to be followed in human/machine integration, which stands beyond interface design, and calls for a deeper human comprehension of technological agent’s structure and functionalities, which will, ultimately, require the development of an operational cognitive framework, where work processes and technological behaviour are integrated in professional competences, as he two faces of the same coin.