© GRK 2323

Doctoral researcher

Name

Felix Miesen M.Sc.

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Contact Information

Organization Name

Research Training Group 2323

Research Training Group 2323

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Visiting address:

Institutsgebäude S7A
Raum / Room 205 Georg-Schumann-Str. 7a

01187 Dresden

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The doctoral project aims at tackling the conflict between providing assistance versus developing competencies. In CPPS, most tasks are solved automatically by the system and the human operator must step in only in ill-defined and non-frequent situations. Due to these periods of non-use, competencies are likely to decay. To ensure safe operation of CPPS, operators must be assisted in solving those situations. Ideally, the assistance not only ensures safe operation, but also promotes the competency development. The doctoral project covers several conceptual and experimental work packages, which are further outlined in the following.

Conceptual Work

• Competency modelling
  In the first work package, competency modelling for operating modular process plants (example of CPPS in process industries) was carried out, which is the basis for following work packages. In order to assess needed competencies, four expert interviews with participants working in practice or research were conducted. The interviews were analyzed qualitatively and the results were additionally validated in a quantitative online survey. Further 19 experts from practice and research took part in this survey.
• Identification of competency-promoting interventions in high risk domains
  Results of the expert interviews show that operators in modular process plants need assistance to solve tasks adequately. To get insight on how to tackle the conflict between providing assistance and promoting competencies, a systematic literature review on competency-promoting interventions in high risk-domains (process industries, aviation, and automated driving) was conducted. A total of 90 relevant studies were identified that provide guidance for designing competency-promoting assistance, e.g. interactive elements.
• Designing an experimental environment
  For investigating the effect of competency-promoting assistance in modular process plants, an experimental environment with multiple scenarios differing in their levels of complexity (based on needed competencies) is necessary. Such an environment is developed in collaboration with researchers from the Chair of Process Control Systems and the Process-to-Order Lab at TU Dresden.

Experimental Work

The following work packages address the conflict between providing assistance and developing competencies and include the design and the evaluation of competency-promoting assistance in modular process plants. 

• Competency acquisition with worked out examples
  In a between-subject design, participants will learn to control the developed simulation with a scenario of lower complexity. During competency acquisition (i.e., instructions and manual training), the experimental group is provided with a worked out example of a similar scenario.
• Effects of competency-promoting assistance
  In a between-subject design, participants will learn to control the developed simulation with a scenario of lower complexity. After that, participants have to solve a scenario with higher complexity, either with competency-promoting assistance (experimental group) or without (control group).
• Maintaining competencies through competency-promoting assistance
  In order to assess the longitudinal effects of competency-promoting assistance, participants take part in three dates with intervals of one week each with an intervention during the second date (manual control with assistance vs. manual control vs. automatic control).