Abstract:

The development towards industrial 4.0 is based primarily on modern production machines in conjunction digital technologies. Following this trend, the operation and development of advanced machinery becomes more complex and requires complex skills of employees in various qualification phases. The supporting foundation for the successful introduction and implementation of new production technologies and thus the connectivity to new trends are finally the competences of the employees.

From the viewpoint of increasing diversity of the workforce, in particular the growth of the group of older employees with the described age-correlated changes in the textile industry, the differential-dynamic job design in textile production seems more relevant than ever. Younger employees which already grown up with the new media have an advantage over their older counterparts to use modern technologies. However, older employees have a significant edge in experience. These gaps must be closed in accordance with training opportunities.

A theme is therefore, for example, the networking of new production systems and employment of staff and the resulting potential for conductive to learning related to specific aspects of automation. New production automation facilitates the learning of new technologies in the application directly on the machine. In this work-integrated learning of the most heterogeneous groups is supported in the textile industry. It is further recommended that systems that support the employee in his skills development with the new production methods, such as Adaptive Supporting Systems at textile machinery.

The theme of "human-technology interaction of demographic change" is explored in the form of an evaluated approach to the optimization of production systems in the textile industry under the consideration of ethical, legal, learning and social implications of technological developments. In cooperation with industry and research partners the adaptation of new production systems will verify for the textile industry, using demonstration work places in the laboratory and in industry.

The interaction with "intelligent" systems on machines and with the ever increasing automation also processes, work structures and tasks of employees at all levels will change. The work contents will become more complex so extended and modified skills are necessary.

Especially the ever-changing interaction of employees, machinery, control systems and work organization systems must be considered from the point that technology should serve people, not vice versa. The cooperation between social and technical innovations, arising from the introduction of new production technologies, needs to be considered from an interdisciplinary engineering and social science perspective.

The introduction of new production systems must be understood as holistically socio-technical systems not only as purely technological. This means that personnel and organizational issues, such as new organizational and training forms, as "so-called soft" factors are must be considered.