Along with the technological development, industrial revolutions have also shaped human work. Right now, industries are experiencing the fourth wave of industrial revolution. This wave is characterized by a rapid technologization through which industrial companies have been transforming into smart factories with highly automatized and digitalized technology solutions. Development has been excessively technology and business oriented, yet we have also seen that it has affected human work. Physically demanding work tasks have been replaced by more complex work tasks with higher cognitive demands. Scientific literature has shown the evident need to better understand the human perspective in this sociotechnical complexity. Based on the visions for the upcoming industrial revolutions, like Industry 5.0, it is likely that this need is also of interest and topical in the future.

Within a multidisciplinary approach, we have examined technology transformation in this context from the human factors and ergonomics (HF/E) perspective. We have focused on organizational and individual capabilities needed when adopting new production technologies. We have paid particular interest to manufacturing companies’ capabilities to implement HF/E expertise and knowledge when sensing new opportunities for technological development, seizing these opportunities through design actions, and transforming them for practical use in their production systems.

In this plenary presentation, I will provide insights into our empirical findings and discuss the challenges confronted by the companies. In addition, I will discuss the benefits that can be achieved when HF/E is acknowledged. To facilitate strategic management level discussion, the findings are presented in a form of a road map.