Smart wearable and collaborative technologies for the operator 4.0 in the present and post-covid digital manufacturing worlds

This paper addresses the potential of smart wearable and collaborative technologies in support of healthier, safer, and more productive shop floor environments during the present and post–coronavirus 2019 pandemic emerging digital manufacturing worlds. It highlights the urgent need to “digitally transform” many high-touch shop floor operations into low-touch or no-touch ones, aiming not only at a safer but also more productive return to work as well as a healthier continuity of production operations in more socially sustainable working environments. Furthermore, it discusses the interrelated roles of people, data, and technology to develop smart and sustainable shop floor environments. Lastly, it provides relevant recommendations to the key business units in a manufacturing enterprise in regard to the adoption and leverage of smart, wearable, and collaborative technologies on the shop floor in order to ensure the short- and long-term operation of a factory amid the coronavirus 2019 pandemic and the future of production and work in the Industry 4.0 era.