EnableMe50+ - Methods and technologies to counteract occupational challenges of the demographic change

Industry is currently facing many challenges, such as a constant increase in complexity in work because of customer-specific production and the higher amount of product-variants, an increase in the use of technology at workplaces or a radical shortening of product life cycles and the associated challenges for manual work tasks. At the same time, workforce is also undergoing rapid changes. One of the major drivers of change concerning workforce is the demographic change. Caused by the on average higher age of workforce, companies must increasingly face the specific needs and challenges of older employees. At present, this is only practiced in a few companies and older employees, who have built up a valuable experience for the company over years, are moved to other workplaces. The increased requirements of elderly workforce regarding education and training, technology acceptance, working time, work system design and similar topics are treated only superficially. EnableMe 50+ tackles the existing practice and aims for developing a generic concept for empowering elderly workers, taking into account the dimensions of technology, organization and humans. Based on a broad literature analysis as well as extensive case studies with partner companies, initial approaches for such a generic model are to be developed. These approaches are implemented and further developed in a first field experiment in the IIM. learning factory. Key results of EnableMe 50+ will be: 1. A methodology to analyze workplaces and work systems concerning worker’s age 2. A framework for identification of educational-needs for future industrial work 3. A collection of solutions with specific methods to support the three dimensions Technology - Organization – Human 4. A Framework and procedure model for age-appropriate design of work systems A broad view on the topic of elderly employees can be used to create the generic model for supporting elderly workers in the work systems of the future