The Faculty of Chemical and Process Engineering of the University of Pannonia decided to establish the "Péter Árva Study Scholarship" in memory of the founder of the Department.  The scholarship is awarded once a year to an undergraduate student who has achieved excellence in the field of process engineering. This year, the scholarship was given to our PhD student András Darányi. Congratulations!

The Operator 4.0 Vision (Romero et al, 2016) is now a growing reality on many shop floors around the world, enabling better work and workplaces for frontline workers.

Tuan-anh Tran received the bronze award for PhD student in the 2024 annual "Student Paper Contests" organized by the IEEE Hungary Section (IEEE HS). The awarding paper, "Heart Rate Variability Measurement to Assess Acute Work-Content-Related Stress of Workers in Industrial Manufacturing Environment—A Systematic Scoping Review," was formulated in collaboration with the HECON (Egészségügyi Közgazdaságtan Kutatóközpont) team at Obuda University. This paper is a mutual effort to connect human factors research with the medical science approach in the industrial environment. Based on the founded facts in this paper, we have established many future research orientations accordingly. Congratulations for this award!

The "Human-centred Manufacturing and Logistics Systems Design and Management for the Operator 5.0" special session has been accepted for the APMS 2024 conference. This special session invites contributions focusing on multidisciplinary approaches for human-centred systems development, dealing with the design and management of assisting, collaborative, and augmenting work technologies, human factors affecting human-technology interaction, towards new work models for the Operator 5.0.

HUMARWISE: HUman-centric Methods for Augmented Reality in adaptive Work Instruction Systems Enhancement

Project leader: Chiara Cimini - University of Bergamo

Partners:

• University of Bergamo

• University of Pannonia

• RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

The special session at INCOM 2024 in Vienna emphasizes the importance of human-centric digital twins in manufacturing. Human-centric digital twins target a value-based industrial revolution emphasizing human-centricity, sustainability, and resilience. The organizers are seeking outstanding research that examines the relationship between humans and technology, providing effective tools for the development of human-centric digital twins.

The IFIP WG5.7 Special Interest Group (SIG) on "Human-Centred Systems," led by Dr. Chiara Cimini, Dr. Tamas Ruppert, and Prof. David Romero, supports the development of smart, resilient, and socially sustainable factories. They aim to design systems that reduce the physical and cognitive burden on workers, enhancing their safety and productivity. Their goal is to create competitive and sustainable cyber-physical systems in manufacturing, service, and logistics by leveraging the balance between human and technological capabilities.

The article by the Operator 4.0 Research Network demonstrates how traditional factory digital twins can be expanded to incorporate human characteristics within the Asset Administration Shell (AAS). This extension enables human-centered control and management, as demonstrated by prototypes in two use cases, where operators are equipped with wearable sensors and feedback dashboards. Referring to Industry 5.0, this approach provides an accurate digital representation of humans, offering data-based decision support to enhance operators' well-being and resilience, although ethical and regulatory challenges remain.

The article conducted by the Operator 4.0 research network demonstrates how the Industry 5.0 paradigm combines the technological foundations of Industry 4.0 with human-centricity, sustainability, and resilience, supporting the workforce and enabling the Operator 4.0 approach. A systematic literature review based on the Scopus database, employing Bibliographic Network Analysis, text mining techniques, and knowledge graphs, revealed the development levels of Operator 4.0 and the drivers and barriers for the transition to Operator 5.0. The findings indicate that while the transition to Industry 5.0 is inevitable, Industry 4.0 technologies are not yet sufficiently integrated with human factors, thus the article can serve as a guide for developments and help industrial managers prepare for this change.

The Reman Challenge was hosted for the fifth time by BORG Automotive, with three students from the research laboratory taking part. The team of Abdulrahman Khalid, Timea Czvetkó and Gergely Halász finished in the third place.

The challenge was about research and innovate transformative solutions that can revolutionize operators' work conditions in remanufacturing operations. From virtual reality to human-robot collaboration, your only boundaries are the limits of feasibility and scalability of the solutions.

On 22nd November 2023, the ITDK conference took place at the University of Pannonia, aiming to introduce students to the academic life. At the conference, students can present their scientific work. Three students from our laboratory participated in this conference. Mónika Gugolya was awarded first place, Judit Horváth and Norbert Parádi were awarded second place. Congratulations to them for their achievement!

The Hungarian Fuzzy Society is a division of the János Neumann Computer Science Society. The prize is awarded in two categories, for students in higher education (BSc, MSc) and PhD students. In both categories, it is intended to recognise outstanding scientific and creative activity based on relevant publications. András Darányi, PhD student at the Faculty of Engineering, won the Hungarian Fuzzy Society's Youth Award. Congratulations for this award!

Gartner just published the top 10 strategic technology trends for 2024 report. The Augmented connected workforce is in 9th place, which is the main goal of the Operator 4.0 research network led by our research group.

It was a great pleasure to meet again with the part of the Operator 4.0 research network at the APMS Conference in Trondheim. We discussed a lot, and we heard so many great presentations about human-centered solutions.

Our Special Session proposal is accepted for the 18th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing, in Austria. We are inviting the researchers to apply your work to Human-centric Digital Twins for Human-centred Manufacturing special session. For more details please find the call for papers and our special session description.

Tamás Ruppert will be a co-chair at the APMS 2023 Conference, in Norway. He will hold the Workforce Evolutionary Pathways in Smart Manufacturing Systems Special Session with Chiara Cimini.

The first Operator 4.0 Symposium took place between May 22nd and 24th, 2023, hosted by the Faculty of Engineering at University of Pannonia. Prominent researchers from the Operator 4.0 research network led by Dr. Tamás Ruppert  and Prod. David Romero participated in the event, coming from more than 12 countries, a total of 23 participants. The first day of the symposium was held behind closed doors, during which the group decided to release a Manifesto establishing human-centered research directions, to be followed by further statements. Additionally, a collaborative network will be established from the Operator 4.0 laboratories managed by the 17 institutions associated with the groups. The event was attended by, among others, the creators of the Operator 4.0 concept: Prof. Dr. David Romero from Mexico and Prof. Dr. Johan Stahre from Sweden. The symposium was inaugurated by Dean Dr. Sándor Németh and Vice Rector Prof. Dr. János Abonyi. 

In 2022 we finally met in Stuttgart to discuss lot of ideas and projects. The 27th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA), was held from 6th-9th September 2022 in Stuttgart, Germany. During the special session at the ETFA conference in Stuttgart. We organised a special session about Industry 5.0 – Augmenting the Human Worker in Balanced Automation Systems. You can find the published and presented papers in the SS here.