RAPID: Accelerating the Future of Work? Understanding Future Shifts in Technology Adoption in the Seafood Industry in Response to the COVID19 Pandemic

RAPID：加速未来工作？

• 批准号: 2031326
• 负责人: Alicia Modestino
• 金额: $ 19.97万
• 依托单位: Northeastern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-07-01 至 2022-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2031326&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RAPID; Accelerating; Future; Work; Understanding

This Rapid Response Research (RAPID) grant will collect ephemeral data to investigate the accelerated adoption of new technologies in the seafood industry in response to both worker and food safety concerns arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. As supply chains continue to face disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ability of the U.S. to provide safe, fast, and domestically sourced food—including seafood—has become of paramount importance. Seafood processing still relies primarily on humans working in close proximity to one another in plants that are known for dirty, cold, and dangerous conditions. The ephemeral data collected by the research team during this period of unprecedented economic disruption will be provide new knowledge regarding the future of work in seafood processing plants, including the demand for, and feasibility of, adopting human-collaborative autonomous systems to process and package food more safely and efficiently at all stages of production. The result of this new knowledge will be used to inform both seafood processing as well as other systems in agriculture and healthcare that are potentially undergoing rapid technological change in response to the pandemic. The ephemeral data collected through this research can also inform a new set of design requirements for next generation systems at the FW-HTF. The research activities undertaken to collect the data will also help train a new generation of engineers and social scientists to address interdisciplinary challenges at the convergence of robotics, human-robot collaboration, and labor economics through the participation of graduate student researchers who will learn to incorporate elements of different domains into their thinking. Multi-generational teams that include students from Northeastern University’s nationally recognized cooperative education program will enhance the pipeline for STEM education through innovative hands-on research experience specifically geared towards undergraduates. The U.S. imported $22 billion of seafood in 2018—more than at any point in history due to an inability to meet domestic consumer demand. This project will advance US leadership in a globally competitive and domestically underserved industry, while simultaneously advancing understanding of key scientific, engineering, and societal challenges associated with the rapid acceleration of technology adoption.Motivated by the urgency to collect data that can inform how firms are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, this project will adopt a disrupted socio-technical systems (STS) framework to study how firms are re-evaluating the human and technology components of their systems, their relationships, and the values and design principles that are used to shape and reshape those system. The contributions of this research stem from the following interconnected goals: (1) Collect ephemeral data on how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the human interaction dynamics in the seafood processing industry, (2) Develop new knowledge to advance our understanding of the degree to which STS will change as technology adoption is accelerated in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in both the seafood industry and other similarly situated systems, including agriculture and healthcare. (3) Assess the feasibility of alternative uses of integrated robot co-workers to address both the current pandemic in the near-term as well as the future-of-work in the longer-term. This ephemeral data will capture the reassessment of this overall system through a survey of roughly 100 firms in the seafood industry along with 5-7 follow-up interviews and three case studies. Specifically, this project will measure how firms valued the human and technology elements of the system before the pandemic, and how their views have changed with the associated economic disruption. This new data will help develop technologies to facilitate social distancing in seafood processing plants over the next 18-24 months while also ensuring that these solutions are aligned with designs to advance the future of work in the seafood industry beyond the current pandemic. Collection of this data before firms adopt any new technology will enable the study of processes by which firms revise their STS frameworks in response to such disruptions. Doing so will allow the new knowledge created by this research to inform extrapolations to systems in other industries that will also be reshaped by accelerated adoption of new technologies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这笔快速反应研究(RAPID)赠款将收集短暂的数据，以调查海鲜行业加快采用新技术的情况，以应对因新冠肺炎大流行而引起的工人和食品安全问题。随着供应链继续面临新冠肺炎疫情造成的中断，美国提供安全、快速和来自国内的食品-包括海鲜-的能力变得至关重要。海鲜加工仍然主要依赖于人类在以肮脏、寒冷和危险的条件而闻名的工厂中近距离工作。研究小组在这段史无前例的经济混乱期间收集的短暂数据将为海产品加工厂未来的工作提供新的知识，包括在生产的所有阶段采用人类协作的自主系统以更安全和高效地处理和包装食品的需求和可行性。这一新知识的结果将被用于向海产品加工以及农业和医疗保健中可能正在经历快速技术变革以应对大流行的其他系统提供信息。通过这项研究收集的短暂数据也可以为FW-HTF的下一代系统提供新的设计要求。为收集数据而进行的研究活动还将有助于培训新一代工程师和社会科学家，通过研究生研究人员的参与，解决机器人学、人类-机器人协作和劳动经济学融合方面的跨学科挑战，这些研究生研究人员将学习将不同领域的元素融入他们的思维中。包括东北大学国家认可的合作教育项目的学生在内的多代团队将通过专门针对本科生的创新实践研究体验，加强STEM教育的渠道。由于无法满足国内消费者的需求，2018年美国进口了220亿美元的海鲜，超过了历史上的任何时候。该项目将促进美国在一个全球竞争和国内服务不足的行业中的领导地位，同时促进对与技术采用的快速加速相关的关键科学、工程和社会挑战的理解。由于迫切需要收集数据，以便为企业如何应对新冠肺炎疫情提供信息，该项目将采用一个扰乱的社会技术系统(STS)框架，研究企业如何重新评估其系统中的人力和技术组件、他们的关系，以及用于塑造和重塑这些系统的价值观和设计原则。这项研究的贡献来自以下相互关联的目标：(1)收集有关新冠肺炎大流行如何改变海产品加工行业人类互动动态的短暂数据，(2)发展新知识，以促进我们对STS将在多大程度上改变的理解，因为海鲜行业和包括农业和医疗保健在内的其他类似系统因应新冠肺炎大流行而加快采用技术。(3)评估替代使用综合机器人同事的可行性，以在短期内应对当前的流行病，并在较长期内解决未来的工作。这些短暂的数据将通过对大约100家海鲜行业公司的调查，以及5-7次后续采访和3个案例研究，捕捉到对这一整体体系的重新评估。具体地说，这个项目将衡量公司在大流行之前如何评估系统中的人力和技术要素，以及它们的观点如何随着相关的经济中断而改变。这些新数据将有助于开发技术，在未来18-24个月内促进海产品加工厂的社会距离，同时还确保这些解决方案与旨在推动海鲜行业未来工作超越当前大流行的设计保持一致。在公司采用任何新技术之前收集这些数据，将使公司能够研究公司修改其STS框架以应对此类中断的过程。这样做将允许这项研究创造的新知识为其他行业的系统推断提供信息，这些系统也将因响应新冠肺炎大爆炸而加速采用新技术而重塑。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。