Within MELLOW, work is characterized by close cooperation between project partners with different areas of expertise. The application partners implement the AI-supported assistance system in their company, participate in collaboration islands and test the adaptation of the production process in practice. The technical partners develop the AI-based assistance system and support its integration at the application partners. From an organisational science perspective, the ergonomics partner oversees the evaluation of various collaboration concepts and methods, incorporating the findings into guidelines and workbooks for designing transformation processes. Associated partners in the European economic area, consisting in particular of industry associations and suppliers, are also involved in the project.

Solor is a manufacturer of made-to-measure orthopaedic footwear. The company employs around 100 people, 80 of whom work in production. Solor’s customers are orthopaedic shoemakers in Germany and Europe. Solor manufactures custom-made sockets for these customers on the basis of specified dimensions. The customer then uses the individual parts, including the upper, to produce the made-to-measure shoe for their end customer.

Wildling Shoes GmbH is a German company for minimal shoes with 170 employees, based in Engelskirchen with an international supplier network. Wildling Shoes GmbH sees itself as an “impact company” and pursues the mission statement “We are part of the Re:generation”. A high level of quality is linked to social and ecological responsibility at all stages of the value chain in shoe production. The improvement of working conditions and the promotion of quality awareness at the production sites of the shoe manufacturers involved in Portugal are key to this.

The MiniTec GmbH & Co. KG was founded in 1986 as a manufacturer of a self-developed modular aluminum profile system. Since then, the product range has been expanded to include linear technology, complementary CAD software and special machine construction based on these systems. In 2017, MiniTec Smart Solutions GmbH emerged as a start-up from a long-standing collaboration between the technology initiative SmartFactory KL e.V. and MiniTec. Since then, the team of nine employees has been working on the development and sale of an interactive assistance system (MiniTec SmartAssist) for manual assembly tasks.

The Institute for Technology and Labor e.V. (ITA) is a labor and economic research institute recognized as an affiliated institute of the Rhineland-Palatinate Technical University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU). It was founded in 1995 and employs 30 people working in interdisciplinary research teams. A particular emphasis is placed on the human-centred design of work and organization, as well as the involvement of employees in transformation processes.