Abstract:

The long-term development of aggregate organizational performance remains critical and dependent on many factors. Although companies continue to leverage improved and intelligent tools in building accurate planning models, human-related factors such as employee satisfaction continues to be crucial to efficient and sustainable business operations like manufacturing. As such, companies are paying more attention to human resources management principles and the role played by humans in decision making processes. While the benefits of intelligent and automated systems in manufacturing process are tremendous, human labor remains central to sustainable operations in key areas due to the versatility, cognitive and motor abilities that computers cannot yet economically duplicate. This work aims to emphasize the importance of HFs in today’s dynamic and unstable marketplace through a review of literature. The reviewed studies show that despite the recent proliferation of automation and knowledge engineering tools, cognitive and social processes related to workforce satisfaction are vital to creating and managing robust and responsive manufacturing systems. Many of the automated planning models designed to aid managerial decision-making neglect HFs and their impact on system and employee performance. Failure to consider HFs in manufacturing operations could result in erroneous process designs, failing systems, and increased employee health hazards.