Empowering Field Operators in Manufacturing: a Prospective Towards Industry 5.0

In manufacturing systems, field operators represent a key bottleneck for operational efficiency to secure production systems' productivity, quality, and resilience. Through their direct engagement with production resources, they obtain a genuine understanding of the course operations on the manufacturing floor. The effective leverage of this knowledge within a digital framework that embraces human intelligence is a crucial value for the emerging Industry 5.0. In this article, we envision the integration of intelligent Decision Support Systems (DSS) for empowering Blue-collar workers in production facilities. The paper makes a theoretical discussion about the role of digitalization in improving field operators' awareness of Production Planning and Maintenance. Moreover, we propose a software architecture for a DSS-enabled digital twin for empowering field operators in production decisions.