Smart Automation in Luxury Leather Shoe Polishing: A Human Centric Robotic Approach

Not only large companies, but also small ones are moving toward process automation, due to the need to improve mental and physical well-being of the workers. Human-centred manufacturing is crucial to increase flexibility, agility and competitiveness (Lu et al., 2022). Humans are no longer meant to do tedious and strenuous work, but to add high-value content to final products by exploiting their cognitive abilities. The relationship between humans and machines has radically changed with the transformation of Industry 5.0: machines are required to perceive and adapt to workers' needs, not vice versa. Production is changing in all companies in different sectors, even in those that have production characteristics totally opposed to an automated process. For example, in footwear luxury industries the processes are typically manually performed by expert artisans due to high quality, precision and comfort requirements of products and to the wide variability and customisation of production. All these features are in contrast to full automation, and only craft work can bring profitability to the company. However, the need for automation is strong to ensure high productivity but also the well-being of the workers.