A novel social gamified collaboration platform enriched with shop-floor data and feedback for the improvement of the productivity, safety and engagement in factories

Nowadays a lot of people working in industrial environments face daily routines as boring and dull which disaffects them from each other. Thus, the evolution of online communities has given a great opportunity in communication and interaction between people that work in the same environment but may not have direct interaction. An online Social Collaboration platform introduced to industrial environment enhances interaction between colleagues and empowers bonding by creating a social community where participants can share concerns, ideas and knowledge. Moreover, when introducing a new idea to a workplace, like Social Collaboration platform, it is expected to have both positive and negative reactions so it is challenging to create an attractive environment and engage as many individuals as possible. For this reason a gamification strategy can be used which is proven to appeal to the majority of people when applied with appropriate strategy. The gamified social collaboration platform that is introduced in this paper supports engagement of employees in to their daily jobs by triggering motivation and offering only positive feedback. The objective of the proposed concept is the creation of a pleasant and friendly environment in industrial premises where employees have the need to participate in collective activities and improve team spirit. A complete social collaboration tool with gamified actions is presented which is deployed in a plant floor at CERTH/CPERI and tested on real conditions during 3 months. The analysis of the user's engagement is promising and showed that the platform was successfully introduced at daily procedures and interactions using the gamified actions. Moreover, an overall enhancement of positive mood between colleagues is noticed along with engagement and satisfaction. This novel social platform proves that there is a necessity for change in industries by boosting human contact and eliminating alienation. Fortunately, with the right use of technology, this necessity can be satisfied and the whole procedure of communication, engagement and knowledge exchange is facilitated.