Towards Artificial Intelligence in Production: A Competence Profile for Shop Floor Managers

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies experience an ever-growing interest both in research and industry. Though they offer high potential for manufacturing, recent studies among practitioners reveal that there is a lack of knowledge for implementing AI in production environments and especially for leading an implementation successfully. Therefore, in this paper, a competence profile for shop floor managers has been developed. Shop floor managers are seen as suitable levers in companies for implementing AI technologies. This profile focuses on their practical requirements and encompasses relevant productionoriented use cases, social factors for engaging employees and deeper understanding of the models to interpret the results. The profile has been put into practice by means of learning content and has been tested by shop floor managers. The feedback is promising: About 78% of the testers stated that the content is helpful for them in understanding the benefits, challenges, tasks, and risks when implementing AI based projects. The results serve as a baseline for future development of learning materials with corresponding exercises to be taught in learning factories targeting the hands-on AI implementation