special session

The transition to Industry 5.0 marks a radical shift in how industrial systems are designed and operated. It redefines worker roles, transitioning labor from repetitive manual tasks to cognitively intensive activities (Longo et al., 2020). The Operator 5.0 is a skilled professional expected to:

• Perform high-value tasks in smart, resilient factories

• Identify and correct procedural errors

• Understand standardization norms, legal frameworks, and management methodologies

To support this shift, the design of industrial systems must evolve. Traditional methods must be rethought or replaced to enable systems that are resilient, sustainable, and most importantly, human-centric.

This special session aims to gather novel research contributions that propose models, frameworks, design approaches, and evaluation techniques to foster the Industry 5.0 transition. We focus particularly on systemic design interventions involving:

• Automation systems

• Information systems

• Representation and interaction systems