Drivers and Barriers to High Situation Awareness in Manufacturing: A Literature Review

Abstract

The integration of automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics is, transforming the manufacturing industry, creating complex, dynamic, environments where humans, machines, and information systems interact closely. These conditions increase the likelihood of human errors, caused by cognitive challenges such as lapses in attention, poor situation, awareness (SA), flawed decision-making, distractions, communication, failures, and fatigue. Such errors result in delays, equipment damage, product defects, financial losses, and safety incidents. High SA enables, workers to better perceive, comprehend, and project information, thus, reducing human errors. Although SA has been extensively studied in, aviation, military, and healthcare domains, research focusing on SA in, manufacturing is still emerging. Given the critical role of SA in optimizing, production efficiency, ensuring safety, and minimizing errors, this study, examines the current state of research on SA in manufacturing, explores, factors that degrade SA known as SA demons, and investigates the use of, assistance systems designed to enhance SA. A structured literature, review is conducted, with findings synthesized to highlight existing, challenges and propose future research directions aimed at achieving, high SA in manufacturing environments.