Workforce training strategies and performance assessment in manufacturing environments: a preliminary investigation

Workforce skills greatly influence the production systems' performance and the companies' competitiveness. Training operators in the industry, particularly for complex non-routine activities like maintenance, is increasingly important. The scientific literature proposes several training, upskilling, and reskilling strategies using emerging technologies such as Virtual and Augmented Reality. However, a critical challenge remains in assessing the impact of training on performance and determining the best strategy to implement based on task and worker characteristics. Establishing the need for training and its effects on the system is still difficult. This study, starting from the lack of contextualization of the manufacturing training strategies filled by a framework proposal, aims to preliminary investigate the literature to detail training strategies and methods to evaluate the performance and skills achieved. The findings highlight a growing interest in smart and innovative training technologies and a lack of training economic evaluation according to the affected workers' performance.