Master Thesis: The Potential and Impact of Conversational Agents for Industry 4.0: A Systematic Literature Review

Master Thesis: The Potential and Impact of Conversational Agents for Industry 4.0: A Systematic Literature Review

Start: 14.04.2022

End: 14.10.2022

Type: Master thesis

Student: Andre Hagel

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Andreas Harth, Christian Fleiner

Abstract: the term “Industry 4.0 (I4.0)” had his 10-year anniversary in 2021. During this period, advances in machine learning, low-cost microcontrollers and new communication standards brought the vision of I4.0 closer to reality. Now, it is time to review the potential and impact of important technologies.

In this master thesis, a systematic literature review [1] shall be conducted to give insights about the application of conversational agents in production environments. Conversational agents (or virtual assistants) are software agents that are communicating with natural language. Popular conversational agents are Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa. In contrast to the service sector, where conversational agents (e.g., chatbots) are mainly used as 1st line support, production sectors are still trying out for what purpose they can use conversational agents.

The objective of this master thesis is to answer the question why conversational agents are applied in production environments. This includes the identification of use cases, domains, and respective problems that applied conversational agents solve. It is also important to disclose the capabilities and limitations of conversational agents and what alternative solutions exist.

[1] Barbara Kitchenham and Stuart Charters. 2007. Guidelines for performing Systematic Literature Reviews in Software Engineering.