How Can Robots Enable Inclusive Workplaces? Rethinking Safety and Design for Diversity in Manufacturing (6/6)
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Collaborative robotics opens up new opportunities to promote diversity and inclusion in manufacturing by automating physically demanding and monotonous tasks, enhancing ergonomics, and compensating for individual capabilities. This talk introduces an inclusive robotics approach through an industrial demonstrator and presents insights from a study oriented towards a target group. A central research focus is the development of diversity-driven design and safety concepts that move beyond conventional standards based on the “average healthy male worker.”
Clara Wiederschwinger-Fischer is a key researcher at the ROBOTICS Institute at JOANNEUM RESEARCH in Klagenfurt. Her research focuses on the safety and design of robot-assisted workplaces to counteract the shortage of skilled workers in various industries. Prior to JOANNEUM RESEARCH, she worked in research and teaching at the Institute of Management Sciences, Human-Machine Interaction Research Unit at TU Wien. She did her PhD on the topic of safety in human-robot collaboration as part of the TÜV Austria #SafeSecLab. Since 2023, she has been a member of national standardization committees in the field of machine safety and ergonomics.
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