EvoFrame

What it is about

The project “Development and validation of an evolutionary, human-centred framework for change-competent organisations (EvoFrame)” deals with the ever-increasing pressure for change that companies are facing due to accelerated social and technological change. The acceleration associated with change requires the further development of structures, organisations and human-technology interaction.

EvoFrame focuses on the task to be performed by an organisation and then models a suitable combination of man and machine that can complete this task.

To develop new solutions, the project combines practical and research experience in the production environment with occupational health, sociological and psychological findings on human-machine interaction in the workplace.

Aims of the research project

The project partners in EvoFrame are developing and testing a framework based on selected use cases, which enables and promotes the adaptability of companies and their employees. In all solutions developed within EvoFrame, the responsiveness and design of change should be intrinsic. This requires both social and technological innovation.

Based on preliminary considerations of the I4.0 platform on the adaptability of companies and following on from its “Hypotheses as guard rails for achieving goals”, the project will describe the adaptability of an organisation, taking into account occupational medicine and occupational psychology findings, and map them in a digital solution. On the one hand, this digital solution offers a virtual, superordinate image of the organisation, and on the other, specific individual solutions that enable new forms of human-machine interaction or model-based collaboration between organisational fractals.

Motivation

Practice shows that companies are exposed to constant change and that individual transformation projects are not sufficient to accompany change.

In the future, organisational forms are necessary that accompany change immanently and anchor it in the corporate culture and the competences of the employees. The EvoFrame project wants to achieve a high degree of changeability in a fluid organisation. In order to achieve this goal, the project partners are dealing with the questions of organisational, individual and technical prerequisites within an organisation, at the level of the employees’ competences and with regard to the provision and consumption of information within diverse applications.

Multifaceted drivers lead to numerous manifestations of adaptability in the companies. Drivers are divided into: Supporting / flanking general technological development:

• Previous functions are to be done better than before through new ways, e.g. augmented / virtual reality (AR/VR) glasses that offer information in people’s working environment without averting their gaze.
• Reactive changes to unplannability outside direct control e.g. bottlenecks in supply chains, failure of production equipment or staff illness: the use of evolutionary / genetic algorithms and machines can be applied to these changes.Proactive changes to plannable needs e.g. job rotation:
• Recording the wishes of employees, which are solved by genetic / evolutionary algorithms while complying with the requirements.