Our projects
We gain experience through sector-specific projects, that range from pilot projects of roughly six months, to 2-5 year partnerships, with a vision towards 10-year partnerships. Since spring 2022 we have been putting our ideas about transdisciplinary research and innovation into practice. So far, we have worked with Schiphol and KLM Baggage Handling, Erasmus MC and KLM Engine Repair Services.
Schiphol/KLM: future of work in baggage handling
While measurable impact on the future of work is recognized as a long-term endeavour, the need for a different approach to technology development to address physical strain in baggage handling is a pressing urgency, along with a checkered history of failure in implementation and/or worker acceptance. To that end, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, with their largest airline partner, KLM, embarked on an 8-month pilot effort with FRAIM to develop a new way of working together with baggage hall employees. Uniquely this pilot did not stipulate new/specific tech development as a ‘deliverable’. Rather, the success of the project (whether it would lead to long term partnership) hinged on building confidence in the way of working in all stakeholders, starting with the baggage hall employees.
A team of young researchers was assembled into a transdisciplinary taskforce (comprising of robotics, design, work psychology, organisational change, and operations research) to work closely with a counterpart team of KLM baggage handling employees. The aim was to leverage academic expertise to enrich the innovation process of fieldlab RoboHouse. While the pilot timeline did not permit full academic research studies, the taskforce and the KLM Team focused on co-creating a transdisciplinary toolkit that would leverage the multiple perspectives brought to bear on the work experience in the baggage halls.
The joint exploration process was punctuated by monthly “knowledge sharing sessions”, with stakeholder involvement from the whole system. These were interactive sessions to engage maximally in joint sense making that disrupts the traditional power relations. They enabled the KLM team to gain trust in their relationship with the young researchers, so they could share freely their insights with team leads and managers. In each session there were moments of emergent insights into work processes, and into the potential inter-organisational dynamics that could be addressed in new ways.
Before the pilot ran its course, stakeholders at both Schiphol and KLM were already expressing the eagerness to transition into a long-term partnership in order to take full advantage of FRAIM’s approach to integrating full academic trajectories (of PhD students, for example) with the transdisciplinary approach to innovation. The planning for the long-term partnership is currently underway to start in 2025.
“Bringing together different disciplines within a team encourages innovation and creativity, allowing us to approach challenges from multiple perspectives. In our innovation process, employee expertise is key. Without their involvement and insights, the chances of success are low. In the project with Schiphol, the practical knowledge of employees provides indispensable insights, essential in the continuous collaboration to develop the necessary improvements in their work-processes.”
Bas Lammers, Research & Design Engineer, RoboHouse
“Opnieuw zijn we in de luchtvaartindustrie aan het pionieren, nu naar de toekomst van werk in de bagagehal. Het is voor een sociale werkgever als KLM zinvol om met alle betrokkenen voorbij het bekende te definiëren hoe leuk en duurzaam werk er uit kan zien in de bagageafhandeling. En daarbij leren de verschillende werelden ontzettend veel van elkaar. Ik vind alleen dat proces al meer dan de moeite waard en ik voel me dan ook vereerd mee te werken aan iets dat nu deze erkenning in de academische wereld krijgt. Op naar meer werkgeluk!”
Robbert van Amerongen, Manager Process and Project Support, KLM
"De recente Stevinpremie is een bijzondere erkenning voor professor David Abbink, mede voor het brede onderzoek dat op Schiphol voor de bagage afhandeling onder zijn bezielende leiding plaatsvindt. Robotiseringsoplossingen vragen veelal om een transdisciplinaire aanpak, en dat is juist wat binnen de FRAIM scope nadrukkelijk wordt gerealiseerd. Ik ben ervan overtuigd dat deze aanpak de way forward is om tot duurzame en gedragen oplossingen te komen".
Harm Josephi, Vice President Baggage Services, KLM
Erasmus MC: shaping the future of nursing work
In the pilot project, we leveraged the academic focus to organise ourselves for partnering with nurses to co-create actionable knowledge. We see nurses for the experts they are, best suited to creatively guide developments in their future of work. Nurses typically don’t complain, and are masters of the work-around, used to getting things done. The downside is that they do not easily think about how to improve their work. This is why they need a seat at the table to shape the future of work, both from their creativity and expertise, as well as for being a key stakeholder in the work context.
“Het verbaasde me wat er gebeurde toen ik werd gestimuleerd beperkingen los te laten en mijn geest de vrije loop te laten gaan. Ik merkte dat ik me anders nogal laat beperken door gedachten als: kan dit wel, is het überhaupt mogelijk?”
Janno Wouters, verpleegkundige Erasmus MC
“Vanuit mijn opleiding ben ik gewend om te beginnen vanaf een gedefinieerd probleem. In het project met Erasmus MC kreeg ik door hoe veel er eigenlijk bij komt kijken om dit probleem te definieren. Het samenwerken met andere disciplines met een veel bredere blik was een eye-opener, soms onwennig en oncomfortabel, maar vooral heel tof. Ik leerde vertrouwen op anderen in het team en hoewel het werken met andere disciplines iets moeilijker is, brengt het vooral veel meer.”
Stephan Balvert, member of the TD taskforce for nursing, now jr Robotics Software Engineer, RoboHouse
“Met deze bijzondere transdisciplinaire samenwerking heeft David Abbink met zijn team bewezen hoe de versmelting van diverse inzichten nieuwe kennis kan creëren, waardoor innovatieve technologie effectiever ingezet kan worden om arbeidstekorten aan te pakken en het werkplezier in de zorg te verhogen. Deze inspanning toont aan dat we samen de benodigde oplossingen kunnen realiseren.”
Petya Georgieva, Programme Manager Convergence Health & Technology
KLM BrightSky: shaping the future of work in engine maintenance
This project formed the very first opportunity for the academic consortium to engage in real-world work contexts. It runs from 2021-2025 and is made possible by the Brightsky programme. Vital to the collaboration and its progress are the interest and openness of KLM engine repair services to start experimenting with transdisciplinary approaches to exploring robotics for their work processes.
The craftmanship of maintenance workers who repair engine fan blades is key to the work processes, and our roboticist researchers quickly saw these couldn’t be fully automated. Therefore, the research work focusses on both the technical challenges of designing optimal control algorithms for human-robot interaction, as well as the scientific challenges related to the understanding of how to achieve meaningful human-robot role allocation, workers’ job satisfaction, and improved productivity/ergonomics.
One of the key use-case tasks we focus on is the blending surfaces of jet engine fan blades, which is an essential part of the repair & maintenance process. The fan blade mechanics of KLM are experts in their field, but the work takes its toll physically. Together with them the focus is on understanding the work they do, designing mechanical and robotics interventions to lighten the physical strain, and making a scientific contribution by exploring the design space of human-robot collaboration (for skilled physical work). With a team of robotics and design researchers and engineers, we make an effort to bring these together to strengthen one another.
"I feel very lucky and proud to work on a project for a life critical domain, such as transportation. For me, this implies high responsibility. I’m not expecting quick results. We can prototype today and test tomorrow, but it can take years before implementation and deployment is ready. Once it’s done, it’s an enormous achievement. We made a difference."
Denis Zatyagov (Robotics Software Engineer, RoboHouse)
“This project is really about the KLM workers and the methods we apply are intended to reflect that. We center the workers in our methodology because we want to do more than just design a tool that enables them (i.e., makes their jobs easier or more efficient). Our collaboration with FRAIM and FRAIM’s focus on transdisciplinary research, pushes us to consider broader questions around worker well-being, engagement and the sense of purpose these incredibly skilled people gain through their work.”
