research centre case study

Sustainable Buildings Research Centre by Cox Architecture

Cox Architecture was established in Sydney in 1962. From the beginning, it can be seen that their priority is the environment, creating sustainable buildings, and spreading the ideas. Their understanding of sustainable buildings showed itself with these approaches; depth knowledge about the site and its surroundings, passive design , and use of long-lasting locally sourced materials . Sustainable Buildings Research Centre (SBRC) is one of the many projects they have completed with this mission. The Sustainable Buildings Research Centre is an evidence-based prototype of a sustainable building that also serves as a research centre for itself.  

University of Wollongong’s Sustainable Buildings Research Centre (SBRC)

Architect: Cox Architecture Year: 2014 Location: Wollongong, Australia Area: 2600 m2

The Sustainable Buildings Research Centre (SBRC) is a multidisciplinary organisation that brings together a wide range of researchers to address the challenges of making our buildings sustainable and effective places where we live and work. The mission of the SBRC is to support the rapid decarbonization of our built environment.

It was decided that the SBRC building, as the home of a sustainable buildings research centre, would go far beyond current Australian sustainability standards for educational and other facilities. The vision was that in a few years or decades, the occupants, visitors, and the wider community would be able to look back and know that the design of the SBRC had pushed the boundaries of what was possible at the time of its design and that this project represented a significant step forward in the delivery of highly sustainable buildings. With these aims, the Cox Architecture team collaborated with UoW and Living Building Challenge to create a structure worthy of these mottos. 

Knowledge About Site 

Cox Architecture’s primary approach to sustainable building starts with getting deep knowledge about the site. The selected site for the SBRC building was at the University of Wollongong’s Innovation Campus, which consisted of low-grade fill from surrounding mining operations in the region and was generally unproductive, with landscape cover primarily composed of native and exotic weeds. Even though this background can set a limit for growth, Cox Architecture’s lead set urban agricultural areas for production and student experience. The plant palette for the urban agriculture areas is decided from the local sources, what indigenous people grow in their gardens for food, medicine, etc. 

The SBRC gardens consist of 5 raised beds made from recycled bricks, five raised beds made from corrugated metal barrels, a vegetable bed on the green roof , and basic planting of fruit trees/vines and herbs in the garden. 

Passive Design

One of the approaches for sustainability that Cox Architecture has carried out is designing passive systems to minimise active use of energy and other sources. Passive design is a key element for sustainable buildings. For SBRC, Cox Architecture has taught about water management and net zero energy consumption and production.  

Water Management

The first decision for water management in SBRC is minimising water use. Most of the facility’s water needs to be provided with the captured rainwater. The grey water captured from the rooftops of the buildings is being collected in properly sized tanks. Collected rainwater goes through filtration without chemicals and is distributed to the showers, PV washings, hand basins, laboratories, and toilet flushes. 

The second approach of Cox Architecture’s water management is the general water flow. One of the essential things about circular, sustainable building is the remainder of what is used. Wastewater management is not what we usually see in a so-called sustainable building. To reach net zero water management, Cox Architecture has thought about this issue too. The approach is going with the natural process. All water sent to drains goes through the blackwater treating plant, and after the operation, the clean water is used to irrigate the garden. Design decisions about landscape also came from providing the stormwater runoff. Hardscapes have been minimised around the building to reach the natural water absorption process.

Energy Management

Energy concern was one of the main challenges of the SBRC. From the construction to the life of the user has been thought to reach net zero energy. The building is created to sustain itself with the gained energy. A total of 600 PV panels have been used to gain enough power. A unique PVT system has been designed with the BlueScope team, and this system also contributes to the SBRC as an archive for a sustainable building approach.

Material Selection

Selecting long-lasting, locally sourced material is one one the key elements of sustainable buildings for Cox Architecture. In SBRC, which can be taught as an archive and research itself, the material selection was essential to show how to do more with less. For the material selection , the team went to appropriate sourcing for reusable materials, and all sources for the process were local. The idea of dematerialization was a key that every product could do more than one job, and locally reused materials were selected wherever possible. Bridge timbers, steel railway tracks, abandoned telegraph poles, reused bricks, and local timbers can be given as examples of the used materials. The richness of textures from the outside can make the building a material library where it proves the power of what can be done with reused materials.

The building itself became a research topic for sustainability, and it is a prototype for such an issue. Cox Architecture defines the structure as dynamic , adaptable, and retrofittable . All design decisions came from the idea of being site-specific and getting the maximum benefit from the surroundings rather than depending on wasteful systems. The orientation also influences the planning of the building. The thin floor plates and suitable orientation provide adequate natural ventilation and sunlight. The form of the building lets sea breezes in, and the eaves provide sun shading during the noon time. The dynamic approach of the building invites people into the building and semi-open social areas. The site is publicly open at all times and lets every curious one experience the natural aura of this education centre.  

References List:

• COX. (n.d.). Sustainable Buildings Research Centre. [online] Available at: https://www.coxarchitecture.com.au/project/sustainable-buildings-research-centre/ .
• COX. (n.d.). Practice. [online] Available at: https://www.coxarchitecture.com.au/practice.
• International Living Future Institute. (n.d.). Sustainable Buildings Research Centre. [online] Available at: https://living-future.org/case-studies/sustainable-buildings-research-centre/ [Accessed 28 Sep. 2022].
• Editor, J.G. – (n.d.). Sustainable Buildings Centre. [online] Available at: https://www.builtworks.com.au/sustainable-buildings-research-centre/ [Accessed 28 Sep. 2022].
• www.uow.edu.au. (n.d.). Research – University of Wollongong – UOW. [online] Available at: https://www.uow.edu.au/sbrc/research/ [Accessed 28 Sep. 2022].
• archiroots.net. (n.d.). University of Wollongong’s Sustainable Buildings Research Centre (SBRC) | archiroots. [online] Available at: https://archiroots.net/project/university-of-wollongong-s-sustainable-buildings-research-centre-sbrc/b

A graduate student who sees architecture as a way to think critically. Using her architectural background, she aims to draw attention to the ways of existing with the earth, not against earth with her writings. She believes that critical thinking will open different doors to both people and the world.

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Case study ii : the torrent research centre in ahmedabad, by abhikram..

The Torrent Research Centre (Gujarat, India) is a complex of research laboratories with supporting facilities and infrastructures, located on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. This building uses Passive Downdraft Evaporative Cooling for a large scale office building and demonstrates that it is possible to achieve human comfort in dry hot regions without using regular HVAC systems and without compromising the cost of construction

“ Developed societies, with their sustained focus on the increasing importance of individuals, have made mechanical cooling an inherent necessity in any modern building in semi-arid regions of the world. Consequently, a majority of the buildings designed in such regions assume the use of artificial lighting and air-conditioning systems, even during daylight hours, for achieving human comfort conditions. For many years now, through our architectural practice, we have been trying to establish that such assumptions are a myth, in addition to being detrimental to the objectives of resource conservation, particularly for the developing countries like India. †Nimish Patel and Parul Zaveri.

SFA were appointed to give their inputs for one laboratory block. Allen Short visited Ahmedabad in May 1993 to understand the environmental conditions and evolve a preliminary concept of the building, using ground cooling as the primary approach. Since the temperatures at the appropriate depth under the ground were not found to be as low as required, this approach was abandoned in favour of the sealed evaporative cooling from the roof, with designated inlets and outlets for the movement of air. This approach is now known as the Passive Downdraft Evaporative Cooling (PDEC) method.

The design of the building facilitates generating an air draft, assuming still air conditions. The air heats up in the peripheral shafts, rises and escapes through the openings at the top. The air in this volume gets replaced from the usable spaces, which in turn receives its own replacement through the concourse area, on top of which the air inlets are located. The entering air is sprinkled with a fine spray of water mist at the inlet, during hot temperatures outside. This facilitates downdrafts. At each floor level, sets of hopper windows designed to catch the descending flow, can be used to divert some of this cooled air into the adjacent space. Having passed through the spaces, the air then exits via high level glass louvers openings which connect directly to the perimeter exhaust shafts towers that suck the air and create a circulation across the building insuring the displacement of fresh air along the day.

During the warm humid monsoon season when the use of the sprayed water would be inappropriate, the ceiling are brought into operation to provide additional air movement in the office and laboratories. In the cooler season the operating strategy is designed to control the ventilation, particularly at night, to minimise heat loss, this is done simply by the users adjusting the hopper windows and openings in their individual spaces to suit their requirements.

Overall control of the solar heat gain is achieved by judicious design of the glazing. The fixed windows are the only decided quantum and shaded externally, not only in the horizontal plane by overhangs, but also in the vertical one by the air exhaust towers which project from the façade. The buildings are thermally massive -the reinforced concrete construction framed structure has cavity brick infill walls, plastered inside and out, and the hollow concrete blocks filling the roof coffers, also plastered inside with vermiculite used as an insulating material on both roof and walls. External surfaces are white, the walls painted, the roof using a china mosaic finish.

Consequences :

The consequences of this major experiment have been under observation since the first occupation of the buildings, and will continue to be carried out for the coming years.

• In the summers, the inside temperatures have generally not exceeded 31°C to 32°C, when the outside temperatures have risen up to 44°C, a 12°-13°C drop

• The temperature fluctuations inside the building have rarely exceeded beyond 3°C to 4°C over any 24 hour period, when the temperature fluctuations outside were as much as 14°C to 17°C.

The economic viability of the project is demonstrated by the following indicators, which are computed for the total project, on the basis of the results from the buildings under observation.

• Additional civil works cost of the project including insulation etc. works out to about 12% to 13% of the civil works cost of a conventional building ;

• Air-conditioning plant capacity saved, is about 200 M. Tonnes.

• The cumulative capital cost of the civil works and the A.C. plant works out to approximately Rs.50.0 lakhs more than the conventionally designed buildings.

• The annual savings in the electrical consumption including the savings on account of less use of artificial lighting during the day is approximately Rs.60.0 lakhs.

• The pay-back period of the additional capital cost, from the saving of the electrical consumption alone, works out to a little less than 1 year.

• The pay-back period for the cost of the construction of the entire complex, from the savings of the electrical consumption as well as plant replacement costs, works out to around 15 years.

In 2004-05, a Post Occupancy Survey was carried out by ‘Building Use Studies’ at the behest of University of Technology, Sydney, Australia & Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. This survey shows that the building, which was designed for 150-175 occupants, is still seen as adequately comfortable when the number of occupants has increased to more than 600, a 250 % increase. (see doc attached)

Conclusions :

•It is possible to make a difference in the human comfort conditions without having to depend on excessive use of electrical/ mechanical energy and with basic and elementary architectural systems.

•The process of achieving human comfort levels was based on the fundamental understanding that comfort condition is not dependant on absolute figures of parameters, but on the difference felt by the human skin, in the temperature and humidity conditions over a period of time.

•The process on the one hand minimized the impact of the external heat within the building through adequate measures of insulating the building’s external fabric, and on the other hand created an effective system of sealed evaporative cooling.

Through a detailed computation, an analysis of the costs of civil and air-conditioning works along with the electrical consumption was carried out for three options of systems to be used, viz : (a) the conventional building with air-conditioned/air-exhausted and open window areas ; (b) the conventional evaporatively cooled building, through cooling pads in the inlets and fan driven ducted supply of air ; and (c) the sealed evaporatively cooled building evolved by SFA. The analysis then showed a three years pay-back period for the additional costs from the savings in electricity cost.

« The Torrent Research Centre demonstrates excellent environmental outcomes. The findings of the post occupancy survey show that this building, completed over 10 years ago, continues to satisfy expectations for a contemporary workplace of high quality that is simultaneously energy efficient. While the wider implications of the success of such buildings for the Indian subcontinent where there is currently a large scale development of “glass boxes†that are both energy intensive and inappropriate for the climate, building performance outcomes in Torrent clearly reinforce the value of a climate responsive approach to building design in any location ».

Architects and Interior Consultants : Nimish Patel and Parul Zaveri, Abhikram, Ahmedabad, India

Environmental Consultants : Brian Ford , Short + Ford Associates, London, UK (Typical Laboratory Block) and CL Gupta, Solar Agni International, Pondicherry, India (Remaining Blocks)

Structural Consultant : Yogesh Vani Consulting Engineers, Ahmedabad, India

Utility Consultant : Dastur Consultant Pvt. Ltd., Delhi, India

Landscape Consultant : Kishore Pradhan, Mumbai, India

Lighting Consultant : Paresh Shah, Sukriti Design Incorporated, USA

Civil Contractors : Laxmanbhai Constructions (India) Pvt Ltd., MB Brothers Ltd., Shetusha Engineers and Contractors Pvt. Ltd., Materials Corner, JK Builders.

Project Period : 1994-99

Size : Built-up area is approximately 19700 m²

(All information provided is copyright © Abhikram, 2007. All rights reserved.)

Documents joints

5 novembre 2007 - PDF - 426.1 ko

5 novembre 2007 - PDF - 214.2 ko

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Human-centred design in industry 4.0: case study review and opportunities for future research

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• Volume 33 , pages 35–76, ( 2022 )

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The transition to industry 4.0 has impacted factories, but it also affects the entire value chain. In this sense, human-centred factors play a core role in transitioning to sustainable manufacturing processes and consumption. The awareness of human roles in Industry 4.0 is increasing, as evidenced by active work in developing methods, exploring influencing factors, and proving the effectiveness of design oriented to humans. However, numerous studies have been brought into existence but then disconnected from other studies. As a consequence, these studies in industry and research alike are not regularly adopted, and the network of studies is seemingly broad and expands without forming a coherent structure. This study is a unique attempt to bridge the gap through the literature characteristics and lessons learnt derived from a collection of case studies regarding human-centred design (HCD) in the context of Industry 4.0. This objective is achieved by a well-rounded systematic literature review whose special unit of analysis is given to the case studies, delivering contributions in three ways: (1) providing an insight into how the literature has evolved through the cross-disciplinary lens; (2) identifying what research themes associated with design methods are emerging in the field; (3) and setting the research agenda in the context of HCD in Industry 4.0, taking into account the lessons learnt, as uncovered by the in-depth review of case studies.

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Introduction

A challenge of manufacturing today is adapting to an increasingly fluctuating environment and diverse changes to meet the demands of the market. Product life cycles are getting shorter while production batch sizes are getting smaller with dynamic product variants associated with increasing complexity, which is challenging the traditional production systems (Benabdellah et al., 2019 ; Kuhnle et al., 2021 ; Ma et al., 2017 ; Prinz et al., 2019 ; Windt et al., 2008 ; Zhu et al., 2015 ). To manage these dynamics, the industrial concept of Industry 4.0 has come about and has been accepted in both research and industry, a trend linked to digitalization and smart systems that could enable factories to achieve higher production variety with reduced downtimes while improving yield, quality, safety, and decreasing cost and energy consumption (García-Magro & Soriano-Pinar, 2019 ; Järvenpää et al., 2019 ; Napoleone et al., 2020 ; Oztemel & Gursev, 2020 ; Park & Tran, 2014 ). Although the adoption of Industry 4.0 in manufacturing reveals positive outcomes, the increased complexity as a collateral effect has also brought many challenges (Bednar & Welch, 2020 ; Cohen et al., 2019 ; Fernandez-Carames & Fraga-Lamas, 2018 ; Mourtzis et al., 2018 ; Wittenberg, 2015 ). One of the challenges is to put humans properly at the centre of smart manufacturing design (Grandi et al., 2020 ; Pacaux-Lemoine et al., 2017 ; Paelke et al., 2015 ; Peruzzini et al., 2019 ; Varshney & Alemzadeh, 2017 ). An approach to address this challenge is known as HCD. According to International Organization for Standardization ( 2019 ), HCD is a multidisciplinary approach incorporating human factors and ergonomics knowledge and techniques to make systems usable. However, the design complexity in smart systems can occur in both directions, where in one direction the human must be able to effectively cooperate with other existing physical system components and simultaneously exchange data with system informatics for hybrid decision making (Fernandez-Carames & Fraga-Lamas, 2018 ; Schulze et al., 2005 ; Zheng et al., 2018 ). The reverse direction is that the design of such smart systems must be capable of sensing and responding to the trust levels of humans they interact with in order to result in more productive relationships between the human and other smart components (Chang et al., 2017 ; Rogers et al., 2019 ; Seitz et al., 2021 ; Song et al., 2016 ; Van Acker et al., 2020 ).

Numerous contributions have been written on Industry 4.0 areas; however, the majority of them focus on the technical aspects in which human factors are commonly underestimated (Bhamare et al., 2020 ; Grandi et al., 2020 ; Pacaux-Lemoine et al., 2017 ; Peruzzini et al., 2019 ; Theuer et al., 2013 ). There is an increasing concern about how human factors are barely considered in design for products and/or services and poorly addressed in manufacturing, causing complex problems with often unknown consequences across different industrial contexts: nuclear accidents (Wu et al., 2016 ), market failures in new product development (García-Magro & Soriano-Pinar, 2019 ), robotic-surgery-related adversities (Varshney & Alemzadeh, 2017 ), technological accidents during machine manipulation (Pacaux-Lemoine et al., 2017 ), and interaction issues among humans and smart systems (Jung et al., 2017 ; Rogers et al., 2019 ; Streitz, 2019 ).

The phenomenon of Industry 4.0 reflects contemporary design contexts that frequently contain complex interdependencies of human and non-human actors—internet of thing (IoT) devices, digital and physical environments—shaping the framework of human roles and socio-technical systems (Cimini et al., 2020 ; Coulton & Lindley, 2019 ; Jwo et al., 2021 ; Kong et al., 2019 ; Kymäläinen et al., 2017 ). However, this does not mean that the existing concepts of design—for example, design for manufacturing and assembly (Favi et al., 2021 ), or a traditional design process that considers existing solutions to fulfil the needs of the largest group (Lorentzen & Hedvall, 2018 )—are redundant. They have evolved and enlarged the scope of design: manufacturability fosters the collaboration of design and manufacturing operations, taking the perspectives of efficiency, effectiveness and economics into account (Chen et al., 1995 ; Venkatachalam et al., 1993 ); social sustainability addresses design for quality of human life by considering transdisciplinary relationships with human diversity (Demirel & Duffy, 2013 ; Martin et al., 2013 ; Papetti et al., 2020 ). These new requirements have impacted the factories themselves, but they affect the entire value chain, from the product design and development process through market segmentation to manufacturing and product disposal management (Bauer et al., 2019 ; Kong et al., 2019 ; Pereira Pessôa & Jauregui Becker, 2020 ). In this sense, for transitioning to sustainable manufacturing processes and consumption, human-centred factors play a core role in the achievement of sustainability-oriented operations throughout the supply chain (Bednar & Welch, 2020 ; Ceccacci et al., 2019 ; Grandi et al., 2020 ; Gualtieri et al., 2020 ; Lin, 2018 ; Rossi & Di Nicolantonio, 2020 ).

To address human-related roles in the context of Industry 4.0, there is a constantly growing interest in research and industrial practices where humans are placed at the centre of design across disciplines. This is manifest in the substantial body of literature providing signposts of theoretical frameworks and models, implementation methodologies, and case studies in cross-disciplinary contexts. The scope of the research is extensive: customer-centric business models associated with customer involvement in design (Adrodegari & Saccani, 2020 ; Grieger & Ludwig, 2019 ; Saha et al., 2020 ; Santos et al., 2018 ); smart design engineering in which the users and emotional interactions are empowered (Benabdellah et al., 2019 ; Pereira Pessôa & Jauregui Becker, 2020 ); technology design in which users are centred (Chen & Duh, 2019 ; Rogers et al., 2019 ); interaction designs among operators and smart manufacturing components (Klumpp et al., 2019 ; Rossi & Di Nicolantonio, 2020 ); human-centred designs for product development (Chen et al., 2016 ; Wu et al., 2013 ); data processing by which humans remain the first design consideration of a data-driven approach (Crabtree & Mortier, 2015 ; Victorelli et al., 2020b ); sustainability in social-technical manufacturing contexts, including social robotic interactions with humans (Bednar & Welch, 2020 ; Leng & Jiang, 2017 ; Richert et al., 2018 ; Streitz, 2019 ).

Even though a wide array of studies has been created and published, these studies have become disconnected from other studies after publication. As a consequence, these studies in industry and research alike are not regularly adopted, while the network of studies is scattered and diffused without forming any comprehensive structure. Although numerous review papers portrayed the key developments regarding HCD over recent years, they focused on the reflection of emerging trends based on bibliometric results, debates, and priorities in their own research scope with their defined disciplines. Recently, Zarte et al. ( 2020 ) conducted SLR to structure design principles for HCD while Victorelli et al. ( 2020a ) provided an understanding of human-data integration with bibliometric analysis. Other representative review studies include Benabdellah et al. ( 2019 ), Duque et al. ( 2019 ), Kadir et al. ( 2019 ), Bazzano et al. ( 2017 ). However, the current work does not pay attention to publications whose case studies contain a tremendous source of useful information. The results of a case study can have a very high impact on exploring in-depth conceptual testing and refinement associated with lessons learnt (Kadir et al., 2019 ; Tetnowski, 2015 ; Williams, 2011 ; Yin, 2018 ), something that deserves to be treated as a special unit of analysis in the review process. Moreover, the review papers also pointed out their own methodological limitations, leading to the call for future research priorities in identifying and deepening the research outcomes of HCD through the cross-disciplinary lens.

To take the perspective of HCD under the transition to Industry 4.0 and simultaneously respond to said call, we contribute to the research through a rigorous review of case studies—to capture the lessons learnt—that have been conducted so far in the literature. The objective is to pave the way for the ongoing developments around the concept and also explain its journey in a systematic and well-rounded methodology. To achieve this objective, we review the existing scientific body of knowledge by:

providing insight into how the literature has evolved through the cross-disciplinary lens

identifying what research themes associated with design methods are emerging in the field

setting the research agenda in the context of HCD in Industry 4.0, taking into account the lessons learnt, as uncovered by the in-depth review of case studies

To achieve the above and contribute to the body of knowledge regarding the HCD domain, this article begins with HCD’s fundamental concepts, which indicate for researchers diverse perspectives on HCD across the value chain in the context of Industry 4.0. The next section presents a strict protocol of SLR that ensures a sufficient amount of quality publications for the analysis. " Literature characterization of human-centred design in industry 4.0 " section digs into the literature to unfold the characteristics of HCD. Subsequently, the in-depth review expresses important facts of HCD in the context of Industry 4.0: emerging research schemes among concepts of HCD, diverse design methods and lessons learnt. This article concludes with a comparative discussion of the papers and suggests opportunities for further research.

Human-centred design in industry 4.0

Nowadays, the fourth industrial revolution develops highly connected resources, integrates smart components and enables interoperability in cyber-physical systems (CPSs) in the twenty-first century (Campbell 2021 ; Cruz Salazar et al., 2019 ; Derigent et al., 2020 ; Duque et al., 2019 ; Pereira Pessôa & Jauregui Becker, 2020 ). The changes that trigger Industry 4.0 have impacted different domains throughout the value chain. First, an autonomous system—embedding smart components in CPSs equipped with autonomous capability—achieves a specified goal independently without any human intervention (Gamer et al., 2020 ; Park & Tran, 2014 ). However, human intelligence and intervention remain a key role because of the safety, security, social aspects and uncertainties posed by such autonomous systems (Fosch-Villaronga et al., 2020 ; Gil et al., 2019 ; Nahavandi, 2017 ; Santoni de Sio & van den Hoven 2018 ; Weichhart et al., 2019 ). Along with advanced technologies in such smart systems, the role of humans has changed and shifted from low-level operations—which can be dangerous, dirty, difficult, and dull tasks—to high expertise and safe tasks (Bauer et al., 2019 ; Campbell 2021 ; Nahavandi, 2017 ; Zhang et al., 2017 ). This phenomenon highlights two different concepts of HCD: human-in-the-loop and human-on-the-loop systems (HioTL). The human-in-the-loop system is a system in which a machine executes a task for a specific command and then stops for the human order before continuation. On the other hand, the human-on-the-loop system is an autonomous system that executes a task independently and completely, while the role of humans can provide expertise not available to the system and can respond to issues that the system is unaware of (Kong et al., 2019 ; Nahavandi, 2017 ; Richter et al., 2018 ; Streitz, 2019 ; Vanderhaegen, 2019 ). An autonomous system should not imply the exclusion of the human, but it should allow for a seamless integration of humans in both operational levels of the process monitoring and strategic levels of orchestration in the aggregate plan. This approach enables high levels of human collaboration to achieve the common key performance indicators of manufacturing while meeting internal constraints (Gervasi et al., 2020 ; Pacaux-Lemoine et al., 2017 ).

In addition, the smart robots work safely with humans in collaborative production systems to autonomously and seamlessly perform collaborative tasks working towards common goals (Boschetti et al., 2021 ; Cohen et al., 2019 ; Gervasi et al., 2020 ; Wojtynek et al., 2019 ). These collaborative robots, often called cobots , relieve the factory workers from the low-level tasks to work side-by-side with humans in order to increase the workstation performance: production pace, efficiency, and higher throughput. In this context, design for the collaboration is well known as human–robot collaboration (HRC), which is also interchangeably called human–robot interaction (Cohen et al., 2019 ; Gervasi et al., 2020 ). Beyond the physical interactions, the collaboration design also enables the robots and humans to share knowledge and learn from others, and so work towards social sustainability, i.e., discussions and accommodation with others’ perspectives (Fosch-Villaronga et al., 2020 ; Gualtieri et al., 2020 ; Richert et al., 2018 ; Weichhart et al., 2019 ).

In addition to smart systems and cobots, the industry and research alike pose new requirements and means of interactive interfaces among human and non-human actors (e.g., machines, smart devices) to deal with the new challenges: interdependent interactions with complex information, and natural and intuitive communication (Diegel et al., 2004 ; Haslgrubler et al., 2018 ; Ong et al., 2020 ; Weichhart et al., 2019 ). In the earlier development, the information systems interfaces are usually designed by the technology-oriented approach that adapts humans to the equipment. This lack of consideration of the human results in lower-than-expected manufacturing system performance and an increasing possibility of error rates (Chen & Duh, 2019 ; Oborski, 2004 ; Wu et al., 2016 ). Therefore, putting humans at the centre of interface design is the concept of the human–machine interface (HMI), which allows humans to understand and operate a machine in a digital manufacturing context. Design for HMI requires a transdisciplinary approach that takes various disciplines into account: cognitive psychology, industrial design, information processing graphics, human factors, and ergonomics (Oborski, 2004 ; Ong et al., 2020 ; Wu et al., 2016 ).

Beyond industrial applications, the user-friendly design of HMI is important in various domains—desktop, web engineering, and services—with which its application boundary is very blurred (Chang & Lee, 2013 ; Chang et al., 2017 ; Hoffmann et al., 2019 ). Basically, one of the key measurements to understand the degree to which the design of HMI meets usage requirements is its usability, which focuses on functional indicators: usefulness, efficiency, effectiveness, and the learning curve of the user interface. The deeper concept of user multidimensional experience—which considers users’ emotional and psychological responses—is getting increasing attention and is also known as the core concept of user-centred design (UCD) (Chen, 2016 ; Kymäläinen et al., 2017 ; Lin, 2018 ; Paelke et al., 2015 ; Zheng et al., 2018 ). UCD, also interchangeably called user-centrality , embraces the user’s needs and involvement as the centre of the co-designing development process (Mazali, 2018 ; Wu et al., 2016 ) in order to enhance user acceptability and acceptance. While the former is a prior mental representation that users have before interacting with a product and/or service, the latter is an evaluation after a real interaction with the design has taken place (Van Acker et al., 2020 ).

From the perspective of life-cycle design, the increasing variability of products and varying expectations of customers have impacted development and manufacturing at different stages, requiring new solutions that enhance the value of the customer’s interaction with the product along its life cycle (Benabdellah et al., 2019 ; Chaudhuri et al., 2019 ; Fernandez-Carames & Fraga-Lamas, 2018 ; Pezzotta et al., 2018 ; Zhu et al., 2015 ). In this evolving scenario, manufacturers navigate from product-oriented development to the servitization phenomenon in which the concept of product-service systems (PSS) is a result of product and service integration. PSS is capable of fulfilling the customer’s present requirements while being adaptable to future needs and necessities through all their life-cycle stages (Cheah et al., 2019 ; Haber & Fargnoli, 2019 ; Leoni, 2019 ; Mourtzis et al., 2018 ; Pezzotta et al., 2018 ; Zhu et al., 2015 ). PSS requires a human-centred design thinking process that not only generates the value-in-use to the customer through the identification of the latent requirements, but also manages the stakeholders and the technical feasibility (Cheah et al., 2019 ; Santos et al., 2018 ). The approach of HCD, such as service design, plays an important role in the design of service-oriented value propositions by providing a set of methods to improve customer experience and understand emerging social trends (Iriarte et al., 2018 ).

The value chain itself is being reconfigured because the type of value exchange is shifted from selling products to providing services in order to optimize competitiveness through market segmentation strategies towards customer personalization. Smart PSS allows for a completely new relationship between manufacturers and customers and thus enables new business models towards customer-centricity that facilitate customer-focused and co-creation relationships towards sustainability for business, customers, and stakeholders (Anke, 2019 ; Bednar & Welch, 2020 ; Benabdellah et al., 2019 ; Grieger & Ludwig, 2019 ; Ma et al., 2017 ; Saha et al., 2020 ). This phenomenon is enabled by the ubiquity of digital technologies that allows for a fundamental shift in the business landscape in which the individual customer is at the centre of design activities, at the point of origin, and an active participant across different business processes: innovation, development, management, and production to deliver “smartness” values (Brenner et al., 2014 ; Mazali, 2018 ; Zheng et al., 2018 ).

Smartness is a socio-technical phenomenon—in which the production processes and the products themselves are technical aspects—that impacts society’s awareness of sustainability in terms of the environmental, social, and economic aspects (Bednar & Welch, 2020 ; Fu et al., 2019 ; Gualtieri et al., 2020 ; Pereira Pessôa & Jauregui Becker, 2020 ). There will be a need for a strategic balance between shorter- and longer-term desires, values, and policies, and the interests of different groups of stakeholders. Technology alone cannot give an organization a competitive edge or provide an industry step change, but an organization must be sustainable and have an architecture based on financial, ecological, and socio-technical systems. This context reconfigures the interrelationship among human and non-human actors: people and organizations, technologies and manufacturing systems, and production and consumption. Smartness expresses a new relationship between society and technology in the name of Industry 4.0 (Bauer et al., 2019 ; Bednar & Welch, 2020 ; Mazali, 2018 ; Rogers et al., 2019 ; Rossi & Di Nicolantonio, 2020 ; Yao et al., 2019 ).

The advent of Industry 4.0 has made many changes, and the concepts of design oriented to humans are not exceptional. Some concepts are defined in different contexts, and the boundaries of their application overlap and are often used interchangeably. The similarity among these concepts is a multi-objective approach that aims at designing products and/or services towards human well-being while ensuring sustainable development. In a broader sense, this multi-objective approach addresses not only human factors and ergonomics towards human diversity, but also design for manufacturability: the design process must be efficient; the manufacturing processes must be capable, proactive, and economic (Anderson, 2014 ; Favi et al., 2021 ; Sinclair, 1992 ). This perspective must also take the approach of life-cycle management that aims at managing the activities of products and/or services across the life cycle towards sustainability, such as life-cycle cost analysis for economics (Aurich et al., 2007 ; Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek et al., 2021 ; Kambanou, 2020 ). This multi-objective approach in HCD is not only consistent with the definition of HCD reported by International Organization for Standardization ( 2019 ) (Fernandez-Carames & Fraga-Lamas, 2018 ; Rossi & Di Nicolantonio, 2020 ) but also provides a broader perspective throughout the value chain in the context of Industry 4.0.

Due to the broader perspective and diverse contexts in which the concepts regarding HCD have emerged and spread across disciplines, it would be difficult for scholars to set a proper research direction. This difficulty motivates us to review and structure lessons learnt in literature via the cross-disciplinary lens to identify coherent research directions for subsequent researchers and industrial practitioners alike. To realize our objective, the following section presents the protocol of SLR that allows the body of knowledge to be gathered in a systematic but objective way.

Research methodology

Figure  1 shows a process flow of SLR whose objective is to sufficiently cover the research topic and provide evidence with minimization of subjectivity and bias (Boell & Cecez-Kecmanovic, 2015 ; Tranfield et al., 2003 ).

A process flow of systematic literature review

First, there are two fundamental keywords, including “human-centered design” and “industry 4.0”. However, scholars use disparate terms to describe the concepts, and the boundaries of these concepts remain blurred, as analysed in " Human-centred design in industry 4.0 " section. Therefore, a wide range of keywords were identified and combined to discover comprehensively and objectively across a broad range of well-known databases whose description is provided by “ Appendix ” (Table 9 ): Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct, Emerald, SpringerLink, Engineering Village, SEGA Journals, and EBSCO. Covering a wide range of substantial databases is one of the decisive efforts for overcoming the limitations of a single database, as reported by Saha et al. ( 2020 ). One problem with this breadth of databases is the noticeable difference among their search functionality that requires adjustment according to each database, as detailed by “ Appendix ” (Table 10 ).

As a result, there are 265 identified papers, and nearly 162 of them are found by the database of SpringerLink and Emerald, whose disciplines focus on varying fields—science, technology, engineering, and management—that show the transdisciplinary applications of HCD. Table 1 also shows that the number of papers found across databases decreases while that of duplicate papers among them increases proportionally, which shows that papers relevant to this research have been sufficiently covered and reached a state of saturation.

The next step continues with the review protocol to distinguish two groups of inclusion and three groups of exclusion criteria associated with their corresponding description, described in Table 2 . In addition to the exclusion of duplicate papers (LP2), we also ensure the credibility of published papers by excluding papers that have not undergone a review process and have been published in journals (LP1).

Given our competence in the language, the papers written in non-English language (LL) are not considered for this study. To keep our research focus, we also excluded all irrelevant papers that mention HCD and Industry 4.0 as examples (LR1) instead of their main research subject; mention the research agenda (LR2) instead of research focus; or cite expressions (LR3), keywords and/or references (LR4). For instance, we found the paper published by Ribeiro and Bjorkman ( 2018 ), “Transitioning From Standard Automation Solutions to Cyber-Physical Production Systems: An Assessment of Critical Conceptual and Technical Challenges”, as the search result on the database of Web of Science. However, the paper focuses on the aspects of CPSs instead of HCD, which only appeared as a reference paper. At the end of step 3, we excluded all irrelevant papers across the databases for the following step.

The included papers are analysed in detail and ranked in order according to what extent they are relevant to HCD and Industry 4.0, with a focus on the manufacturing areas. We classified them into three groups of inclusion: (DR) 24 directly related papers dedicated to HCD in the context of manufacturing; (PR1) six partially related papers studying HCD but in different contexts; (PR2) 47 partially related papers providing useful information related to HCD: design concepts, design methods, supporting technologies, human diversity, ergonomics, economics, manufacturability, and sustainability. Based on our presented objectives, the following section starts by presenting the overall characteristics of the literature, followed by an in-depth review of case studies—emerging trends, design methods, lessons learnt—and opportunities for future research.

Literature characterization of human-centred design in industry 4.0

This section provides an overall quantitative picture of the included papers: the trend of research interest associated with the most cited papers, the regions and countries where the papers are made, and, importantly, the transdisciplinary and multidimensional approach in HCD. Subsequently, the in-depth review of case studies presents the emerging trends among the concepts of HCD and design methods, followed by an affinity analysis that categorizes their research outcomes and limitations.

Overall characteristics

Growth rate of research interest.

After excluding the duplicate papers, there are 215 remaining papers whose yearly publication data allow for the extrapolation of two interesting stages from 1997 to the middle of 2020, as portrayed by Fig.  2 . First of all, one notices that the topic has gained momentum and research interest in different aspects of HCD. Secondly, for the period 2015–2019, there has been an almost consistent and healthy growth in the number of publications. Obviously, the 2020 data is still incomplete, which shows a lower number of publications than that of the previous years, because this research was carried out in the middle of the current year. Besides, we applied the Hot’s trend prediction method to exponentially conjecture that the research publications could reach 108 papers by the end of 2020. However, the growth rate could be affected due to the global issue of Covid-19.

Yearly publication trend with the exclusion of duplicate papers

By examining only 77 included papers, Table 3 presents the most cited papers, accounting for 63% (329 out of 501 total citations). Interestingly, these top-cited papers have almost been published in recent years. This fact shows that the development of HCD has not matured yet, while the scholars have made the references to the recently published papers for new findings instead of citing the previous ones that have not been well generalized in the research community.

The top cited paper of Zheng et al. ( 2018 ) outlines future perspectives of smart manufacturing systems in which user experience is considered as one of development challenges, and transdisciplinary research is called for future research. Beyond the technical perspectives, the scholars also drew attention to social aspects. Specifically, the work of Mazali ( 2018 ) explicitly concluded that one of the key issues for the future is to design a balance between the worker being able to control the process by using their own intelligence and the automation of digital algorithms. This perspective is also agreed upon by the work of Streitz ( 2019 ), who graded the equal importance among humans and technologies in ambient intelligence to achieve the smart paradigm.

Publication origin

By taking a detailed look at 77 included papers, Fig.  3 shows that the most influential countries are accounted for by Germany (18%), followed by Italy (14%), and China (12%). In the regions, European countries have shown strong contributions in the field with 65% publications, which was reflected by several pieces of research— Factories of Future (European Commission, 2013 ) and Platforms for CPSs (Thompson et al., 2018 )—whose recommendation for future research indicates that it has been a long road reaching the systems of HioTL at the matured level together with other emerging technologies. Some specific research programs and priorities in the next three decades are extracted as below:

Human-oriented interfaces for workers: process-oriented simulation and visualization.

Products and work for different types of skilled and aged labour, education and training with IT support.

Regional balance: work conditions in line with the way of life, flexible time-and-wage systems.

Knowledge development, management and capitalisation.

Papers by regions and countries

Transdisciplinary approach

By examining the journals by which the included papers were published, the transdisciplinary approach of HCD is strongly evidenced by the fact that there are no journals significantly overwhelming other journals. Table 4 reveals two interesting facts. First, the top 11 journals out of 54 journals—which publish 77 included papers—range from varying research disciplines: engineering; computer science; business management; social and philosophy, which is specialized by the journals Cognition, Technology & Work and AI & SOCIETY . This transdisciplinarity integrates cross-disciplinary perspectives—philosophy, engineering, computer, business, and social sciences—in the context of HCD and transcends their traditional boundaries. This fact addresses the interest in extending the research boundaries of various dimensions of HCD: human diversity, physical to cognitive ergonomics, economics, manufacturability, and social and human-related sustainability.

This transdisciplinary approach has also brought different studies across various research contexts, as can be seen in Fig.  4 . There are 42 papers out of 77 included papers that clearly indicate their research focuses on specific manufacturing processes and industries: machinery and equipment as the top one, followed by automotive industry and machining process . The adaption of HCD has progressed in more specific fields: adhesive solutions was considered as the case study on which Lee and Abuali ( 2011 ) tested their methodology of innovative and advanced PSS; smart labelling design was developed from the foundation of Industry 4.0 human-centred smart label applications proposed by Fernandez-Carames and Fraga-Lamas ( 2018 ); design for textiles was implanted with interactive technologies to experiment and enhance fashion emotional design by Wang et al. ( 2018 ).

Research focus on different industries by papers

On the other hand, there are 13 papers out of 77 included papers that explicitly adapt HCD in services, for example public service for smart housing services—which seamlessly connect humans and machines—by design for HMI with the application of Bluetooth ubiquitous networks (Diegel et al., 2004 ) or a 3D-based meta-user interface (Mostafazadeh Davani et al., 2018 ). For the healthcare sector , Haber and Fargnoli ( 2019 ) emphasized the understanding of human needs and proposed the approach of PSS—the integration of products (hemodialysis devices) and services (e.g., technical support, response time)—for the offering’s value. In the same sector, Gervasi et al. ( 2020 ) proposed an evaluation framework—which expresses the perspectives of engineering, cognitive, and social science—of HRC to assess the support of robots for elderly people to reach a specific place.

Multidimensional approach

The research methodology is also diverse in both conceptual and empirical research, as evidenced by Table 5 . Fifty-six out of 77 included papers (around 73%) take an empirical approach, while the remaining 21 papers (around 27%) contribute to the conceptual findings. Empirical research uses scientific data or case studies for explorative, descriptive, explanatory, or measurable findings, while conceptual research focuses on abstract ideas, concepts, and theories built on literature reviews (Marczyk et al., 2005 ; Williams, 2011 ). Those conceptual papers are further categorized into SLR, accounting for four papers (around 5%) that differentiate from traditional narrative review papers (around 22%). The strong point of SLR is a replicable, scientific, and transparent process minimizing bias through exhaustive literature searches of studies and simultaneously providing the traceability of results (Boell & Cecez-Kecmanovic, 2015 ; Tranfield et al., 2003 ). Of the 56 empirical articles, 37 papers (around 66%) are qualitative studies and 19 articles (around 34%) are quantitative studies. Those figures explain the current research effort that focuses on describing, explaining, and interpreting HCD is overtaking the research effort on quantification and statistical treatment for supporting or refuting research findings. This fact is reflected by the nature of the social phenomenon being investigated from the human point of view, leading to the difficulty in the generalization of results (Mennell, 1990 ; Walsh et al., 2015 ).

Table 5 also reveals the multidimensional approach of levels of research analysis that range from the level of the product to the levels of the workstation, the company and, finally, society. The research on the level of society and the workstation is still modest in comparison with that of the company or the product, accounting for 12 papers out of 77 included papers (around 16%). The figures show there is reasonable space for further research that deals with HCD at cross-layer levels other than the company and product level, which is also consistent with the future research agenda proposed by the European Commission ( 2013 ).

In a broader sense, by applying the qualitative research methodology, Fosch-Villaronga et al. ( 2020 ) took a step beyond the company level to gather expert opinions addressing social challenges—ethical and legal issues, job availability—due to the use of social robots. They investigated the challenges from both user perspectives—privacy, autonomy, the dehumanization of interactions—and worker perspectives, such as the possible replacement of jobs by robots. Based on the companies’ perspectives with regard to addressing this level of social concerns with the qualitative approach, Mazali ( 2018 ) conducted 40 in-depth interviews with managers of 20 manufacturing companies to accommodate the social needs and organizational contexts that involve multiple stakeholders and new roles of intelligent systems in workflows. In the lower area, the company level is addressed by the business cases and processes. For instance, the work of Hammer et al. ( 2018 ) shows an extension of existing business models for quality of experience that incorporate user needs and motivation as aspects of the individual dimension. Subsequently, the workstation level concerns the design for human-oriented workstations, for instance, addressed by Gualtieri et al. ( 2020 ) who concluded the need to perform an accurate ergonomic assessment at the first phase of workstation design. The last layer of analysis is the product level, whose design object is an artefact or a service solution.

In addition to the transdisciplinary approach—an integration of cross-disciplinary perspectives—in HCD, this multidimensional approach is also evidenced by the cross-layer level—the product and/or service, workstation, company to social level—in which humans are centred.

In-depth review of case studies

There are 43 papers that report case studies out of 77 included papers (around 56%), as detailed by “the Appendix ” (Table 11 ), which provides a useful source for researchers to make references to design for case studies. Those case studies report the design problems associated with the contexts, data collection, and analysis in both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The review objective is to make contributions to the future research agenda by harmonizing the lessons learnt that reveal the research results and limitations of the case studies. In addition, the subsequent section provides the emerging trend of concepts regarding HCD, followed by the structured harmonization of design methods.

Emerging trend

The strategy to categorize the case studies follows the design concepts embraced by the corresponding paper. Those concepts are not always explicitly indicated by the papers that may use the term “human” or “user” and even consider them interchangeable terms. This confusion is also reported by Holeman and Kane ( 2020 ) and Bazzano et al. ( 2017 ). Therefore, Table 6 structures the description of the concepts associated with their common context of use.

The variants of HCD reinforce the findings of the transdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach—physical to cognitive ergonomics, products and/or services to social-technical systems—towards human diversity, ergonomics, economics, manufacturability, and social and human-related sustainability. Based on the understanding, Table 7 captures the emerging trend that provides insights into six concepts summarized in chronological order.

The top three concepts—namely HCD, PSS and UCD—that account for 35 out of 43 case studies (around 81%) are the most frequently and recently used concepts during the last three years. HCD is the most popular term, although it originated somewhere in the 1400s to systematically improve design for procedures and tools to accomplish the work (Nemeth, 2004 ). HCD has changed dramatically in the context of Industry 4.0, where scholars have expanded the research of physical ergonomics to systems including humans. Specifically, the case studies are designed in various implementation scales in different contexts: the product level by testing the method of individual product innovation design in solving bicycle problems based on ergonomic perspectives (Wu et al., 2013 ); the company level by validating the proposed model of the artificial self-organizing manufacturing control system explicitly putting humans in the centre of the system design (Pacaux-Lemoine et al., 2017 ). Beyond technology, the trend of market personalization has received increasing attention from researchers. The literature witnesses the increasing number of case studies that pertain to the concepts of PSS and UCD. The case studies also distinguish clearly between PSS and UCD by the way that PSS focus on business models at the company level while UCD experiments focus on human experiences about design for product and/or service solutions at the product level in consideration of human diversity and social aspects.

On the other hand, the case studies related to the concepts of HioTL, HMI and HRC are not well accounted for. One of the technical challenges is that the boundaries between technologies and humans are increasingly fuzzy: language processing, social robotics, artificial intelligence, cyber physical systems, virtual reality, and augmented reality. This phenomenon is blurring the limits of where the human ends and technology starts (Frauenberger, 2019 ; Gervasi et al., 2020 ; Weichhart et al., 2019 ; Wojtynek et al., 2019 ). Moreover, recent research tends to focus on technical aspects instead of tackling existing problems related to error-prone interaction between human and non-human actors (Klumpp et al., 2019 ; Song et al., 2016 ).

Another fact shows that the research community has responded in a determined way—35 case studies during the period of 2017–2020, which greatly exceeds other periods—to the call for empirical research in the field (Benabdellah et al., 2019 ; Kadir et al., 2019 ). This effort, which is worthy of emphasis, reveals an increasing interest in empirical studies, which brings research and industrial applications closer together. This trend also aligns with the future research recommendations: Factories of Future (European Commission, 2013 ) and Platforms for CPSs (Thompson et al., 2018 ). The following deep analysis manifests the design methods connected with supporting technologies that the papers embrace in order to realize the effort in question.

Design methods

Norman ( 2016 ) explains that “the human mind is exquisitely tailored to make sense of the world” (p. 2). This ability requires products and/or services that are designed for easy interpretation and understanding. Therefore, methods for design must define procedures, techniques, aids, or tools to discover the minds of humans—users, customers, stakeholders—that serve as key inputs resulting in well-designed solutions. Figure  5 captures the frequency of design methods that are discussed in four generic groups: discovery, clean-up, engineering, and experiment.

Design methods applied by the reviewed case studies. 1 Frequency divided by the total number of case studies (43 case studies) derived from “ Appendix ” (Table 11 )

Around 63% of case studies make the most of iterative design : knowledge obtained through the discovery is assured by an iterative process of idea exploration, gathering, and assessment. This method contains a bundle of procedures, techniques, and tools—participatory design, interviews, questionnaires, focus groups, scenario observation, field studies, prototyping—for searching and matching design ideas with the human mind. These approaches help designers focus on human diversity to gain critical design inputs and feedback: requirements elicitation acquired from maintenance professionals by field studies (Kaasinen et al., 2018 ), human perception of different stakeholders by focus groups (Turetken et al., 2019 ) and usage difficulties of non-expert users by scenario observation (Song et al., 2016 ). On the basis of questionnaires, Kong et al. ( 2019 ) also studied and called user frustration “the key pain spot” in the context of industrial wearable systems. They also pointed out countermeasures—confinable and reconfigurable modularized hardware sets—that address the usage, cognitional, and operational issues, and reduce the complexity and cost in the design solutions considering various aspects: ergonomics, plug-and-play features, and manufacturability. The modular approach is also comparable to product platform design that tackles the issues regarding manufacturability—product customization, variety, and commonality between products—and brings a competitive advantage: reduction in design effort and time-to-market for future generations of products (Farrell & Simpson, 2003 ; Martin & Ishii, 2002 ; Simpson, 2004 ). This is further evidence to show the necessity of the transdisciplinary and multidimensional approach within which an engineering method can also be applicable in the context of HCD to integrate human and non-human factors: human diversity, ergonomics, economics, manufacturability, and sustainability.

In addition to the acquisition of human needs and requirements, iterative design is also suitable for investigating “what-if” scenarios on design solutions. For instance, Kymäläinen et al. ( 2017 ) and Harwood et al. ( 2019 ) built fiction prototyping—video-illustrated and tangible interaction tools—to facilitate human-centred perception and cognition of the future potentials of products and/or services. This so-called design fiction—an interactive and tangible approach—evaluates alternative design solutions or criticizes existing ones (Knutz et al., 2014 ) before they are manufactured and/or delivered to customers, which enhances the robustness of iterative design by deeply understanding human experience.

Even though an effective understanding of human requirements is vital for well-designed solutions, this task is difficult due to various subjective human ideas: prioritization, complexity, imprecision, and vagueness. Clean-up is significantly more challenging for requirements of services than those of products (Haber & Fargnoli, 2019 ; Song & Sakao, 2016 ). To respond to the challenge, 6 out of 43 case studies (14%) deal with fuzzy inputs and multiple-criteria decision making by applying mathematical models : analytic network process (ANP), Thurstone’s Law of Comparative Judgments (LCJ), fuzzy set theory, and geometric vectors. While Zhu et al. ( 2015 ) took advantage of ANP to determine and prioritize the importance weights of engineering characteristics derived from a set of different customer requirements, Haber and Fargnoli ( 2019 ) prioritized customer requirements by the LCJ that transforms the customer preferences into scale values and then represents the importance of each preference. To quantify the complexity, Mourtzis et al. ( 2018 ) proposed a 2D geometric vector to estimate the product and service’s design complexity, which is defined by information content, quantification of information, and diversity of information. This quantification of complexity supports the decision-making process on alternative design solutions, taking manufacturability into account. To deal with imprecision and vagueness, Chen et al. ( 2016 ) evaluated the users’ perceptual images and feelings about products by the use of the fuzzy membership degree of emotional semantic descriptive words (e.g. traditional-modern, geometrical-organic, romantic-realistic). They also used a statistical method—principal component analysis—to cluster the varying user perceptions and feelings into homogeneous groups of design characteristics. Similarly, Leng and Jiang ( 2017 ) clustered similar individual service design processes into homogeneous bundles of services by applying a granular computing method—fuzzy set theory combined with quotient space theory for classification (or clustering) of uncertain complex problem (Zhang & Zhang, 2010 ). Taking both customer and engineering subjective ideas, Chen ( 2016 ) carried out the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to develop good quality design based on the imprecise relationship between engineering experience (robust design, design optimization, design cognition) and customer experience (requirements management, ergonomics design). Based on that, the author also proposed a linear programming model to optimize the total profit of the product mix-experience portfolio, taking economic considerations into account. This cost–benefit analysis needs to be embraced because its importance is stated by several authors, especially with regard to the entire life-cycle cost analysis (Anke, 2019 ; Heidari et al., 2020 ; Rodriguez et al., 2020 ). These mathematical methods are useful in dealing with the multiple-criteria decision making and fuzziness (uncertainty) under their own assumptions, constraints, and computing capability, requiring practitioners to be transdisciplinary and understand properly the methods in their context of use. For references regarding these methods, refer to the work of Golden et al. ( 1989 ), Kubler et al. ( 2016 ), and Liu et al. ( 2020 ).

In addition to the discover and clean-up, 26% of the case studies apply human factors and ergonomics to understand and evaluate quantitatively the interactions—physical and cognitive ergonomics—among humans and other actors (e.g., design artefacts, virtual objects, system interfaces, industrial workstations) from the engineering perspective. This method is not only for the expected cost saving, but also for the higher process efficiency that can be realized by shedding light on human factors and incorporating human needs and behaviour in a healthy, safe, efficient and enjoyable manner (Labuttis, 2015 ; Soares & Rebelo, 2016 ). In the context of Industry 4.0, this method is also supported by the digital technologies—virtual and mixed reality, eye-tracking systems, digital modelling and simulation for virtual workplaces—to facilitate designers to capture and analyse design data that span from the physical to cognitive level. On the cognitive level, Wu et al. ( 2016 ) studied the relationship between interface complexity and user diversity—novice and expert (human background)—by measuring users’ psycho-physiological data (eye-movement research) combined with questionnaire evaluation methods: NASA-task load index and Questionnaire for User Interface Satisfaction (QUIS) to measure operators’ subjective feelings and workload throughout the experiment. These eye-movement data provide insights into the visual, cognitive, and attentional aspects of human performance (Duchowski, 2002 ). In addition to the psycho-physiological analysis, Richert et al. ( 2018 ) surveyed participants’ personality dimensions—agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience—to measure the performance and human perception of hybrid human–robot collaboration. On the physical level, Caputo et al. ( 2019 ) carried out an appraisal for the human-centred workplace design by reproducing a virtual workplace in which digital human modelling simulates the whole human task towards preventive ergonomics. Peruzzini et al. ( 2019 ) also designed the virtual workstation with preventive ergonomics by the use of digital technologies: virtual and mixed reality. They also used questionnaire methods to quantitatively measure postural comfort: Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) and Ovako Working Posture Analysis System (OWAS). The case studies apply a wide range of assessment methods regarding human factors and ergonomics: from simple checklists to more complex techniques; from physical ergonomics—for human use and performance (e.g., musculoskeletal symptoms, body posture, low back disorders)—to cognitive ergonomics—for human perception and cognition (e.g., mental stress, emotional stress, situation awareness). In addition, the work of Tillman et al. ( 2016 ), Forsythe et al. ( 2017 ) and Dalle Mura and Dini ( 2019 ) provides a good source of numerous methods for human factors and ergonomics that allow for achieving the various objectives of both manufacturability and social sustainability.

To bridge the gap between human requirements and engineering characteristics, four out of the 43 case studies apply quality function deployment (QFD), which originated in the automotive industry and has been being used with different applications in diverse fields for five decades (Kowalska et al., 2018 ; Zairi & Youssef, 1995 ). This method identifies human-centred requirements, classifies the importance of those requirements, defines engineering characteristics that may meet those requirements, allows for verification of design conflicts among them, and then prioritizes design solutions. In the analysed case studies, this method is also integrated with different methods—application space map and innovation matrix (Lee & Abuali, 2011 ), ANP (Zhu et al., 2015 ); AHP, fuzzy AHP, entropy weight method (Ma et al., 2017 ); LCJ and Kano model (Haber & Fargnoli, 2019 )—to enrich the prioritization and segmentation of the design requirements. The requirements after the cleanup are further converted into the engineering parameters by the QFD. For further reading, the work of Chan and Wu ( 2002 ) and Prasad ( 1998 ) may be of interest to the reader.

Furthermore, other methods also include the Kano model , Kansei engineering , business process modelling, and notation (BPMN). While Haber and Fargnoli ( 2019 ) applied the Kano model to prioritize and classify customer requirements into four different categories—must-be, one-dimensional, attractive, indifferent—for the segmentation of customer value propositions, Wang et al. ( 2018 ) parametrically linked the customer's emotional responses—physical and psychological—to the properties and characteristics of a product and/or service. If these methods focus on a particular process in design (requirement elicitation converted into engineering characteristics), Prinz et al. ( 2019 ) highlighted the use of BPMN to represent workflows—a graphical modelling language for all kinds of business processes. The BPMN is useful for examining a graphical description of design processes to different levels of granularity and discovering inconsistencies and/or differences in sequential steps, conflicting names, or acronyms, to name a few. Even though the methods have only been mentioned one time by the 43 case studies, they have been adapted and applied by different fields for years. Several publications are interesting works that may help readers have a better idea about the Kano model published by Zhao et al. ( 2020 ) and Shahin et al. ( 2013 ), Kansei engineering reviewed by Shiizuka and Hashizume ( 2011 ) and Coronado et al. ( 2020 ), BPMN studied by Ko et al. ( 2009 ) and Chinosi and Trombetta ( 2012 ).

Lastly, another way of gaining knowledge in design is empirical experiments , which account for four out of the 43 case studies. This method is useful for understanding what-if scenarios by different design configurations: an assisted versus collaborative robotic system that supports workers in a plug-and-produce workstation (Wojtynek et al., 2019 ), an automatic speed versus adaptive cruise control system for pedagogical learning supports (Vanderhaegen, 2019 ), delivery of health care services for seniors between a community hospital and social service agency (Hoe, 2019 ), augmented reality that supports trainers versus trainees in phone repairing operations (van Lopik et al., 2020 ). Those empirical experiments allow for designing hypotheses and gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect experience. However, this method requires knowledge of the experimental setup and validation; it also has limited generalization of results due to controlled settings (Kulyk et al., 2007 ).

In summary, the case studies apply various methods that are categorized in the four generic groups—discovery, clean-up, engineering, experiment—associated with supporting technologies to tackle different problems, which requires the transdisciplinary approach for understanding and applying the methods in their proper context of use. While iterative design is power in discovering the human mind (needs, perception, cognition), mathematical models prioritize and classify those human inputs and support the decision-making process on design alternatives. Furthermore, human factors and ergonomics enrich the understanding of interactions—physical to cognitive ergonomics—among human and non-human actors with the support of digital technologies: virtual and mixed reality, eye-tracking systems, digital modelling and simulation for virtual workplaces. To convert the voice of humans into engineering parameters, the case studies have diverse approaches—QFD, Kano model, Kansei engineering, BPMN—and are used in different combinations. Finally, the empirical experiments gain knowledge based on the investigation of what-if scenarios under the human perspective, which is useful for iteratively improving and testing design solutions. Besides, researchers and practitioners alike also benefit from other relevant engineering methods—product platform design (Simpson et al., 2014 ), design for manufacturability and concurrent manufacturing (Anderson, 2014 ), to name a few—that embrace the transdisciplinary and multidimensional approach to deal with a multi-objective design problem towards human diversity, ergonomics, economics, manufacturability, and sustainability.

These various methods dealing with different problems in diverse contexts of use lead to different lessons learnt in the form of their research results and limitations. The following lessons learnt are useful for subsequent researchers to choose proper research areas and advance research contributions to the field by avoiding the research limitations.

Lessons learnt

One way to organize the case studies sharing mutual facts and document them as the lessons learnt is to use an affinity analysis, which is also known as the KJ method and applied in various fields (Awasthi & Chauhan, 2012 ). The information captured during the analysis is tabulated by “ Appendix ” (Table 11 ), providing researchers useful details about design for case studies. Based on the analysis output, Table 8 categorizes the case studies’ results and limitations into six groups of research results (RR) and four groups of result limitations (RL).

One of the most attractive outcomes those case studies reported is the exploration of the design success factors—which are denoted as RR2 accounting for around 47% of the case studies—revealing how the successful deployment of design oriented to humans can be generalized in various contexts. Figure  6 structures those success factors as a triangular decision-making diagram:

Stakeholder networks : the organizational, social, and environmental contexts—which involve stakeholders (e.g., users, customers, employees, suppliers, distributors, partners, regulators, etc.) through the life-cycle design process—are essential for enhancing the credibility of information and promoting the sharing of transdisciplinary knowledge as valuable design inputs (Chen, 2016 ; Mazali, 2018 ; Schulze et al., 2005 ; Witschel et al., 2019 ). The diversity in interests and expectations of the stakeholders needs to be respected and analysed to comprehend the impact of stakeholder interactions and their features at different life-cycle design phases: design, production, delivery, service, maintenance and end-of-life cycle (Mourtzis et al., 2018 ; Turetken et al., 2019 ; Zhang et al., 2020 ). In this respect, the involvement of the users or customers in the early development stage is well realized (Chen et al., 2016 ; Grieger & Ludwig, 2019 ; Hoe, 2019 ).

Levels of involvement : the engagement modes of stakeholders are depicted by three levels of involvement. These levels include the informative level in which stakeholders only provide and receive design information; the consultative level in which they comment on pre-defined design scenarios; and the participative level in which they make influencing decisions on a design process, which is a higher level of engagement than that of the informative level, which only considers stakeholders as information sources in the design process (Schulze et al., 2005 ; van Lopik et al., 2020 ).

Design practice : the design development—which responds to the extents to which the data about users, customers, and other relevant stakeholders should be properly obtained and analysed—needs to be defined. These data include physical activities, behaviours, opinions, feelings, personalities, and physiological responses (Lin, 2018 ; Peruzzini et al., 2019 ; Richert et al., 2018 ; Wang et al., 2018 ). They are explicitly classified into two groups: physical ergonomics—which emphasizes physical characteristics—and cognitive ergonomics, which reflects the integration of cognition thinking and cultural characteristics—individual aesthetic habits, national, ethnic cultural differences—to address social-technical aspects in the context of Industry 4.0 (Bednar & Welch, 2020 ; Fosch-Villaronga et al., 2020 ; Zhou et al., 2012 ).

A triangular decision-making diagram in HCD, encompassing design decisions on who in the stakeholder networks (S1, S2, S3, Sn) will be involved, at what levels of involvement, where the involvement will take place in each through-life phase, and what design knowledge should be exploited within the scale of physical to cogitive ergonomics

The knowledge management of these design data is well expressed as an enabling success factor that can be exploited by digital technologies. These technologies facilitate the collection, organization, retrieval, and reuse of design knowledge in an effective manner. While Fu et al. ( 2019 ) took advantage of IoT solutions (sensors) for user data collection—unintentional behaviour, emotion, culture—and artificial intelligence for data processing, Vanderhaegen ( 2019 ) and Grandi et al. ( 2020 ) made use of digital and mixed reality simulation in measuring human factors—physical stress, physiological data—and evaluating their design experiments. Instead of starting from scratch, Zhu et al. ( 2015 ) and Leng and Jiang ( 2017 ) established mathematically a collection of semantic commonalities derived from historical design ontology-based databases—activities, functions, concepts, process sequences—to build a knowledge platform from which a stream of new derivative products and services can be efficiently developed. The objective is to design for variety and custom solutions, enabling designers to not only save time and cost but also make the most of the experience and expertise that were dedicated to the past design activities. The method used to build the knowledge platform is also comparable with product platform design, which has been maturely researched over the last decade (Simpson et al., 2006 , 2014 ) and is a useful source regarding methods and applications for researchers in the field of product and/or service design.

The second group is the engineering objectives of design (RR1) that are converted into key performance indicators to quantify the effectiveness of the proposed models or frameworks. Around 23% of the case studies indicate that their proposed solutions achieve the engineering objectives: avoidance of ergonomic risks (Caputo et al., 2019 ; Ceccacci et al., 2019 ), improvement of productivity and simultaneously biomechanical workloads (Gualtieri et al., 2020 ; Wojtynek et al., 2019 ), production performance in terms of quality and engineering time (Pacaux-Lemoine et al., 2017 ; Prinz et al., 2019 ). Furthermore, Wu et al. ( 2013 ) proposed a multi-function and modular method for design focusing on human anthropometrics—the branch of ergonomics that deals with measurements of the physical characteristics of human beings (Pheasant, 1990 )—and extending products’ service life towards sustainability. Similarity, Chen et al. ( 2016 ) applied a clustering method for product family design based on anthropology—research in understanding human culture, society, and difference (Monaghan & Just, 2000 )—to improve the agility of the design process towards manufacturability. This product family design allows designers to not only utilize existing design methods from the product platform to form a series of products, but also gain inspiration from different ethnic groups—human diversity with distinct cultural traits—to extract ideal design elements. In another aspect, Chen ( 2016 ) emphasized directly the cost–benefit analysis of design quality, taking into account two economic elements: estimated profit; total cost comprising R&D cost, market capital, and design quality for market share. The reported figures prove the robustness and performance of a system—human diversity, ergonomics, economics, manufacturability, sustainability—can be achievable with the approaches of HCD.

The next research interest is to provide supporting design frameworks (RR6) that facilitate the design process by providing systematic thinking—the use of the integrated novel design methods (innovation matrix, application space mapping, QFD) and Lean initiatives (avoidance of valueless reworks and activities)—towards economic sustainability (Lee & Abuali, 2011 ; Pezzotta et al., 2018 ). Other studies focus on design solutions for complexity and uncertainty: incomplete information regarding human requirements (Haber & Fargnoli, 2019 ); the changes in human preferences (Lin, 2018 ); decision making on different design alternatives for mass customization towards manufacturability (Mourtzis et al., 2018 ); interaction requirements among non-human—smart manufacturing devices/tools, core enterprise business systems (ERP, SAP)—and human actors (manufacturers, designers, users) (Mostafazadeh Davani et al., 2018 ; Song et al., 2016 ; Zhang et al., 2020 ); adaptation of design processes to the context of small-and medium-sized enterprises (Adrodegari & Saccani, 2020 ; van Lopik et al., 2020 ). These studies tackle different problems scattered across life-cycle design phases, useful to consider in relation to further research to address the relevant problems in a comprehensive way.

Around 12% of the case studies made an effort to validate the effect of human diversity on the design outcomes (RR3). They concluded with the important inclusions of individual differences—background, age, gender, education, cultural influences, privacy management—in design. Statistically, Wu et al. ( 2016 ) confirmed that information overload in interface design increased cognitive workload for novice operators compared to expert operators and therefore decreased user efficiency. Similarly, Van Acker et al. ( 2020 ) concluded statistically that higher acceptability of wearable mental workload monitoring was associated with being a woman (for trust in the technology), higher technology readiness—the willingness to accept new technologies and security about private data (Victorino et al., 2009 )—and lower educational backgrounds. Besides, lack of considerations regarding specific classes of difference between humans leads to major effects on design outcomes in various design contexts: age with older people (aged 55–75 years) in safe driving (Jung et al., 2017 ) and health sector (Hoe, 2019 ); cultural influences (Russians, a Frenchman, a Chinese) in the experiment of long-term isolation in a limited room space (Boy, 2018 ). These studies address the concern that if design does appreciate individual differences towards the multidimensional approach—considering not only product and/or service design but also social aspects—this could avoid the thwarting of all research efforts and the subsequent lessening of potential benefits.

In addition to the multidimensional approach, four studies also directly address the need for collaborative design frameworks (RR5): the transdisciplinary approach during the life-cycle design phases. Ma et al. ( 2017 ) exploited common expertise of transdisciplinary teams to convert customer requirements into semantic requirement groups that were subsequently transferred into product design specifications through the use of QFD. Based on the perspective of cross-cutting collaboration for advanced business intelligence, Kong et al. ( 2019 ) structured a common platform design of wearable-enabled applications with three aspects of manufacturability: re-configurability, robust architecture, and design scalability. This platform allows standardization by taking advantage of plug-and-play features and modular approaches to integrate human and non-human actors: artificial intelligence, virtual reality, IoT, cloud computing, and cloud-based cyber systems (enterprise resource planning, manufacturing execution systems, warehouse management systems). In addition to manufacturability, Anke ( 2019 ) and Turetken et al. ( 2019 ) addressed directly the aspects of life-cycle cost analysis in the context of smart services. Specifically, Anke ( 2019 ) assessed the profitability of a smart service at an early stage of service design by developing a web-based tool prototype by which project teams from different disciplines collaborate in the design and evaluation process. In a broader sense, Turetken et al. ( 2019 ) promoted the transdisciplinary and iterative approach in which a network of actors—providers, customers, authorities, retailers, event organizers—co-creates the value-in-use for customers and generates benefits—financial and non-financial characters—for all network partners moving towards sustainability. Each study focuses on an important aspect of design—human diversity, ergonomics, economics, manufacturability, sustainability—that needs to be considered together in a transdisciplinary and multidimensional approach for future research.

In the last group of research interest, three studies present experience-driven approaches that visualize design scenarios (RR4) regarding future possibilities to exploit human experience. Based on design fiction, both Kymäläinen et al. ( 2017 ) and Harwood et al. ( 2019 ) demonstrated the usefulness of the video-illustrated prototype in avoiding the difficulty of interpreting abstract verbal descriptions of new design. This method enables designers to interactively envisage a spectrum of “what if” scenarios towards human experience that may then be explored by using the range of other design methods: focus groups, interviews, and questionnaires. Besides, Kaasinen et al. ( 2018 ) made the most of the technologies in Industry 4.0—wearable technologies, virtual and augmented reality—to visualize the human experience of future maintenance work: feeling competent, feeling connected to the work community, feeling a sense of success and achievement by performing better in jobs. These studies go beyond technical design towards the multidimensional approach: they go from the technical to the social aspects.

Even though all case studies reported positive outcomes, four groups of result limitations are also acknowledged. The most frequently reported limitation is the lack of statistical power in result validation (RL1)—accounting for 60% of total analysed case studies—and the rest is undefined due to limited information for making the conclusion. The lack of statistical power shows limitations in experimental set-up conditions: low sample sizes, lack of fitting in target participants, lack of sound statistical studies, and other biased experimental aspects (Pacaux-Lemoine et al., 2017 ; Richert et al., 2018 ; van Lopik et al., 2020 ). This limitation is followed by the lack of generalizability (RL2) showing the insufficient evidence of the extent to which findings from one study in one context can be applied and reproduced to other contexts. Specifically, 56% of the case studies are constrained and required to be tested by further quantitative methods to prove the transferability of their observed results to other usage contexts (Adrodegari & Saccani, 2020 ; Haber & Fargnoli, 2019 ; Kong et al., 2019 ; Witschel et al., 2019 ). The next limitation is categorized as incomplete solutions to implement the proposed models (RL4)—accounting for around 30% of the case studies—claiming the quality of the proposed models will depend on other external factors. These factors include the “manual” processing of the proposed models, resulting in application difficulties (Ceccacci et al., 2019 ; Zhang et al., 2020 ), which requires additional efforts in further development of supplementary methods and applications to achieve model completion in real contexts (Grieger & Ludwig, 2019 ; Leng & Jiang, 2017 ; Lin, 2018 ; Peruzzini et al., 2019 ). Finally, around 23% of the case studies do not explicitly provide the validation of effectiveness of the proposed solutions (RL3), which emphasizes the need for future research for their validation in various contexts of usage; otherwise, the practical effectiveness of the proposed solutions from the studies is limited (Ceccacci et al., 2019 ; Haber & Fargnoli, 2019 ; Witschel et al., 2019 ).

These limitations are explained through the evaluation methods—which are different from the design methods used as procedures or processes for attaining research findings—applied by the case studies to validate their corresponding research findings. Figure  7 , which is visualized from the detailed data of “ Appendix ” (Table 11 ), shows the top four evaluation methods accounted by qualitative methods: questionnaires, interviews, scenario observation, and workshops. These methods validate the effectiveness of the corresponding proposed models by capturing and communicating the participants’ feedback via different means, leading to a potential lack of robustness in research and encompassing subjectivity and bias in research conclusions (Jung et al., 2017 ; Richert et al., 2018 ; Van Acker et al., 2020 ), which is followed by insufficient generalizability, as analysed above.

Evaluation methods applied by the case studies reviewed. 1 Frequency divided by the total number of case studies (43 case studies) derived from “ Appendix ” (Table 11 )

Although there is a small portion of case studies applying quantitative methods—hypothesis testing and mathematical models (around 9%), performance comparison (around 7%), and ergonomic analysis (5%)—the validation of the case studies’ findings is still questionable. Specifically, by applying the hypothesis testing, L. Wu et al. ( 2016 ) made an effort to carry out a case study of eye tracking with 38 participants that compared three levels of interface complexity in LED manufacturing systems, resulting in the statistical conclusion of interface complexity and user background affecting the user experience. However, the study failed to prove sufficient statistical power, showing its proper selection of sample size. Moreover, the sampling procedure included only the participants who were all from the same company, leading to biased results and affecting the generalizability of research outcomes. Out of 43 case studies, Ceccacci et al. ( 2019 ) and Gualtieri et al. ( 2020 ) conducted ergonomic analysis to validate the effectiveness of their workstation design—productivity, human postural comfort—with a sample size of only two participants. This small sample size, due to its lack of generalizability, requires further research to validate the studies’ applicability in a real context with human diversity. This problem was further evidenced by Van Acker et al. ( 2020 ) who reported that, statistically speaking, the replication of their case study’s findings found in the first experiment was not successful in the second experiment carried out within the same research context, so leaving the conclusion inconclusive. These limitations lead to a lack of robustness in research findings and reduce applications of these studies in industry and research alike.

In summary, the research efforts contributing to the realisation of human roles in Industry 4.0 span six groups of research results: exploration of design success factors, achievement of engineering objectives, provision of supporting design frameworks, validation of the effect of human diversity on design, provision of transdisciplinary frameworks, and visualization of design scenarios. Each study focuses partially on its own defined aspects, which provides a useful reference for future research that combines the transdisciplinary and multidimensional approach towards human diversity, ergonomics, economics, manufacturability, and sustainability in a comprehensive way. Besides, it is worth realizing the lessons learnt in order to overcome the acknowledged limitations—limited statistical power in result validation, lack of generalizability of research findings, further requirements for the supporting methods, lack of validation of the effectiveness—and enhance the robustness of the research findings. This will inspire research applications to both industry and research. Finally, the following section discusses the results of the in-depth review and ends with future research opportunities.

Discussion and opportunities for future research

The analysis of the overall characteristics of the literature regarding HCD reveals its nature and evolution towards Industry 4.0. Various disciplines have made efforts to integrate human roles into the design process, spreading extensively from artefact and service designs to system designs, taking social manufacturing contexts in Industry 4.0 into account. The topic has gained clear momentum, and interest in different concepts of HCD has increased exponentially. This phenomenon leads to evidence of evolution in HCD, whose characteristics and contextual variants—HCD, PSS, UCD, HMI, HioTL, HRC—have evolved in different disciplines across the value chain to tackle new requirements of Industry 4.0. Specifically, HCD is not only applied for the design of procedures or tools to accomplish a task but is also required to have a transdisciplinary approach. This approach ranges from physical ergonomics—for effective and safe human use—to cognitive ergonomics—for treating personality styles. Another piece of evidence is the multidimensional approach of HCD, whose unit analysis originates from design for the product and/or service level to the workstation and company level, and extends to the level of society: ethical, legal and social concerns have risen along with Industry 4.0. However, concerning the industrial state of the art in this topic, there is a lack of evidence of research with full-scale real implementations that go into any detail on cross-level designs that range from the artefact to the social level from which human issues—privacy, ethnic cultural differences, personality styles—are taken into account within transdisciplinary and multidimensional design thinking. Although an increasing number of studies integrate humans in smart manufacturing, many of them limit research scope to physical ergonomics: human factors and ergonomics on operational levels (Kadir et al., 2019 ; Pacaux-Lemoine et al., 2017 ; Peruzzini et al., 2019 ; Wojtynek et al., 2019 ). Therefore, future research needs to pay attention to the transdisciplinary and multidimensional approach.

Moreover, the changes that trigger Industry 4.0 have impacted throughout the value chain in which the human roles have been shaped in the different phases of the value chain, requiring new approaches to integrate humans in the cycle. This phenomenon also leads to the different variants of HCD as an evolution evidenced by the in-depth review of case studies. Those concepts have been widely studied in recent years, and there is no clear evidence for their maturity, which is further emphasized by the number of conceptual and empirical papers associated with the case studies found in the literature review. In particular, the terms HCD, PSS and UCD have received the most attention in the literature, showing their emerging trend of catching up with the challenges of dynamic environments and diverse changes in the design requirements aimed at personalization and sustainability. To realize the full potential of smart manufacturing, however, the other concepts of HioTL, HMI, and HRC also deserve more attention not only in conceptual research but also in empirical experiments. This is a good indication for both industry and research to pay attention to the numerous research efforts in exploring the various concepts of HCD to tackle the challenging requirements of industry 4.0. In this respect, an interesting consideration for future research would be to try to better unify the relationships between those concepts in order to embed them completely into the cornerstone of Industry 4.0 infrastructure.

In addition, the challenges in Industry 4.0 also call for diverse design methods that tackle different problems across the life-cycle design phases in the transdisciplinary and multidimensional approach. To respond to the call, the in-depth review of case studies captures a wide range of design methods categorized into four generic groups—discovery, clean-up, engineering, and experiment—associated with supporting technologies. While the discovery makes the most of the iterative design—participatory design, interviews, questionnaires, focus groups, scenario observation, field studies, prototyping—to discover human needs and requirements, the clean-up encompasses the mathematical models—ANP, LCJ, fuzzy set theory, geometric vectors—to classify and prioritize the design requirements and make multiple-criteria decisions on design alternatives. Subsequently, the group of engineering methods—human factors and ergonomics, QFD, Kano model, Kansei engineering, BPMN—converts the requirements into engineering characteristics and establishes the design process flow to centre design on humans. Lastly, the case studies carry out the experimental setups for understanding what-if scenarios by different design configurations, which is useful for iteratively improving and testing design solutions from the human perspective. Besides, the support of digital technologies—virtual and mixed reality, eye-tracking systems, digital modelling and simulation for virtual workplaces—enables designers to capture and analyse design data in an efficient way. Due to varying methods in design, it is helpful for researchers and practitioners who are transdisciplinary and understand properly the methods in their context of use. In addition to the design methods, some other engineering methods available in the literature—product design platform (Simpson, 2004 ), mathematical multi-objective models taking human factors and ergonomics into account (Dalle Mura & Dini, 2019 )—are also worthwhile complementing the design toolkit for both products and/or services to acquire multiple design objectives—human diversity, ergonomics, economics, manufacturability, and sustainability—through the transdisciplinary and multidimensional approach in HCD.

Furthermore, the literature review also provides the detailed and useful information extracted from the analysed case studies in the subsection lessons learnt , showing the diverse applications of these concepts in different industrial contexts associated with the insights they provide. These lessons learnt to represent various research results associated with limitations that are captured and harmonized in homogeneous groups: six groups of research results and four groups of research limitations. Given the results, the design success factors—which are again reflected by the transdisciplinary and multidimensional characteristics—are the proper design decisions: the stakeholder networks; levels of involvement of each stakeholder at each design life-cycle phase; how deep analysis of design will take place, ranging from physical ergonomics to cognitive levels in the context of use directed to Industry 4.0. Future research needs to express these success factors that deserve attention and emphasis in a comprehensive way to avoid research limitations and market failures in industry.

Another enabling success factor is the knowledge management of design data. The digital technologies—IoT, artificial intelligent, virtual and mixed reality—facilitate the design knowledge to be collected, organized, retrieved, and reused in an effective manner. This advantage in Industry 4.0 enables designers to facilitate the multidimensional approach in the design knowledge that ranges from physical stress, to physiological data, to social data: culture, human behaviour, emotion, and background. In addition to the technology, a well-established method to construct and manage design knowledge is worth considering in future research. The useful method in this case is to establish a knowledge platform that defines a collection of semantic commonalities derived from historical design ontology-based databases. This platform design enables a new stream of products and/or services to be developed in an efficient manner towards economics and manufacturability: design for variety and customization, the use of the existing design experience, and expertise that reduces design efforts and enhances collaborative working.

In addition to the success factors, 10 out of 43 case studies provide quantifiable outcomes. These results prove that the robustness and performance of the systems can be achieved with the applications of HCD in different aspects: human diversity, ergonomics, economics, manufacturability, and sustainability. A limited array of studies incorporates human diversity—human culture, society, background—to improve robustness and sustainability—which combine the human difference with the extended service life—of design solutions. In contrast, numerous studies enhance the robustness in human performance by ergonomics: avoidance of workplace risks and reduction in biomechanical workloads. This outcome also improves economics and manufacturability in terms of production performance: productivity, engineering time, and quality. Moreover, the engineering methods—design for product platform and family, design for multi-functionality and modularity alike—seek a common design platform that paves the way for manufacturability and economics: reduction in design effort, time-to-market for future generations of products and/or services. Beyond the engineering methods, future research needs to embrace the financial perspective to quantify and evaluate the economics of HCD, such as the cost–benefit analysis that can also be extended to the life-cycle cost analysis. However, each study limits its research scope in one of these aspects, which provides a pivotal research space for subsequent researchers, who should grasp these aspects in their research of HCD within a comprehensive approach. Besides, the rest of the case studies provide limited information about how their design proposals are effective in quantifiable ways, creating a need for future quantitative research rather than the qualitative approach. Regarding this research opportunity, it is also useful to make contributions to the creation of a design evaluation system oriented to the process of HCD. This design evaluation system has the following ultimate objectives: to evaluate how well the decisions and activities that are made during the design phases actually turn out, to monitor the design process, and to facilitate decision making on any potential breakdowns and pitfalls.

Other research efforts provide the design frameworks in different contexts of use: the supporting design frameworks that facilitate the design process in an effective manner and the collaborative design frameworks that promote the transdisciplinary and multidimensional approach. The former provides systematic design thinking—integrated design methods to avoid valueless reworks and activities towards economic sustainability—and possible ways to tackle different challenges—the complexity and uncertainty in the relationship between human and non-human actors—scattered across life-cycle design phases. The latter unfolds the common expertise of transdisciplinary teams to co-create value-in-use for customers and also generate benefits—financial and non-financial measures—for all network partners towards sustainability. These frameworks reflect perspectives of the common platform design and life-cycle cost analysis, which are useful considerations for future research to contribute to multi-objective HCD in a comprehensive way.

The minority of case studies have paid attention to experience-driven design with visualization techniques: design fiction with the video-illustrated prototype, and virtual and augmented reality. These case studies give inspirational examples of how digital technologies enrich the human experience, rather than physical real prototypes that are difficult to produce or interpret in abstract verbal descriptions. This approach examines future possibilities of new design that allow designers to comprehend the human experience and go beyond technical design towards the multidimensional approach, from technical to social aspects. In this respect, another interesting research domain would be exploring the possibility of making the best of the technologies in the age of Industry 4.0 to support the process of HCD. This direction of future research would be beneficial to fulfilling the limitations—namely RL4 in Table 8 —that express different concerns: computational capability (Ceccacci et al., 2019 ; Chen et al., 2016 ; Leng & Jiang, 2017 ), data synchronisation (Lin, 2018 ; Peruzzini et al., 2019 ), and knowledge management (Fu et al., 2019 ; Grandi et al., 2020 ; Vanderhaegen, 2019 ; Zhu et al., 2015 ).

A limited range of studies put the perspective of human diversity towards the multidimensional approach that considers not only design artefacts but also the social aspects—background, age, gender, education, cultural influences, privacy management—in design. Lack of consideration of the difference between humans could thwart all research efforts and lessen potential benefits. This is particularly true in the context of population aging, which makes human diversity an essential consideration across diverse fields (Ahmadpour et al., 2019 ; Dankl, 2017 ; Lee & Coughlin, 2015 ). This phenomenon challenges manufacturing design in Industry 4.0, requiring a multi-objective methodology to capture diverse human factors. For example, Dalle Mura and Dini ( 2019 ) optimized ergonomics in assembly lines by proposing a multi-objective genetic algorithm capturing human factors: age, gender, weight, height, and skill. However, Katiraee et al. ( 2019 ) indicated that human differences regarding age and skill have been well studied in the literature, while few studies investigate other human aspects, including cognitive abilities. Therefore, future research on the topic should be ready to accommodate individualization in accordance with human diversity to encapsulate a new relationship between society and technology in the context of Industry 4.0.

Last but not least, the robustness of the research findings could be jeopardized if the identified limitations could not be alleviated. The majority of identified limitations are assigned to the experimental set-up conditions: low sample sizes, lack of fitting in target participants, lack of sound statistical studies, and other biased experimental aspects. There is also insufficient evidence of the extent to which these findings in one context can be applied and reproduced in other contexts. Future research would be trying to establish and enhance the robustness of research results by satisfying certain criteria for validity, such as the use of multiple sources of evidence, replication logic in multiple-case studies, and the well-established protocol of design for case study (Isaksson et al., 2020 ; Voss et al., 2002 ).

Throughout the value chain, the impact and increasing challenges of the transition to Industry 4.0 mean that integrating the role of humans is a part of the transition. It is going to attract more and more research efforts for the next decade, at least in the following five years. This is an opportunity to look back in a systematic manner on what the literature has achieved and the lessons it’s learnt, as summarized in the following points for the considerations of future research:

Research approach : The fulfilment of the transdisciplinary and multidimensional HCD needs to be achieved through a systematic identification of stakeholder networks, levels of their involvement in each life-cycle design process, and design practice.

Research scalability and robustness : The proposals of a design methodology should provide well-proven empirical results in well-validated case studies in varied contexts in which the individualization towards human diversity is taken into account.

Research performance : A holistic approach is needed to make the best of Industry 4.0 technologies, facilitating the process of HCD in which both human and non-human actors are integrated towards human diversity, ergonomics, economics, manufacturability, and sustainability.

Research framework : A new validated framework of HCD should take the points above into account and incorporate a well-rounded evaluation methodology to quantify the outcome of design activities across the life-cycle design phases. Besides, an interesting consideration in future research is to unify the relationships among the variants of HCD in order to embed them into the complete infrastructure of Industry 4.0.

These research schemes are challenging in a way that requires the increasing involvement of transdisciplinary collaboration in which researchers and industrial experts are brought together. This collaborative research is especially called in the phenomenon in which a transdisciplinary and multidimensional approach is required for a specific scientific topic (Chen & Duh, 2019 ; Hammer et al., 2018 ). This is also an approach for our next contribution.

Active work on developing methods, exploring influencing factors, and proving the effectiveness and efficiency regarding HCD show the increasing awareness of human roles in Industry 4.0. However, numerous studies have been brought into existence, but then subsequently disconnected from other studies. As a consequence, the application of these studies in industry and research alike is not regularly adopted, and the array of studies is broad and expands in different directions without forming a coherent structure. This study is one of the unique attempts to bridge the gap between the literature characteristics and the lessons learnt derived from an expository of case studies of HCD in the context of Industry 4.0. In order to sufficiently cover the research topic and provide evidence with a minimal amount of subjectivity and bias, this research performs SLR in which a special unit of analysis is given to the case studies, delivering the contributions in three ways. First, the approach to HCD claims to be transdisciplinary and multidimensional, which is evidenced by the overall literature characteristics: increasing research interest across disciplines and industries in different levels of analysis—product, workstation, company, and society.

Secondly, the transdisciplinary and multidimensional approach is also reflected by the in-depth review of case studies: the emerging trend, the design methods and lessons learnt. The review of the 43 case studies unfolds the emerging research themes—HCD, PSS, UCD—that deal with the challenges of personalization, servitization, and sustainability in the context of Industry 4.0. This phenomenon also leaves research space for the other concepts—HRC, HioTL, HMI—in smart manufacturing in the form of empirical research. Besides, the in-depth review also captures the wide range of design methods that are categorized in the four generic groups—discovery, clean-up, engineering, experiment—to tackle different problems scattered across different life-cycle design phases. Furthermore, the implementation of these design methods is also facilitated with the support of digital technologies: virtual and mixed reality, eye-tracking systems, digital modelling and simulation for virtual workplaces, IoT solutions, artificial intelligent. The variety in both quantitative and qualitative design methods associated with the supporting technologies expresses the necessity of the transdisciplinary and multidimensional approach for comprehending the methods in their proper context of use towards human diversity, ergonomics, economics, manufacturability, and sustainability. Therefore, for better adaption to the challenges, it is worth having cross-disciplinary collaborative research and/or improving the transdisciplinary skill sets of researchers and practitioners. This fact is further emphasized by the lessons learnt that dig into what the literature has achieved. The “ Appendix ” (Table 11 )—which functions as a useful reference for the design of case studies—expresses the most important facts about the 43 case studies, resulting in the lessons learnt. These lessons learnt encapsulate various research results associated with limitations that are captured and harmonized in homogeneous groups: six groups of research results and four groups of research limitations. The research results are categorized into six groups: exploration of design success factors, achievement of engineering objectives, provision of supporting design frameworks, validation of the effect of human diversity on design, provision of transdisciplinary frameworks, and visualization of design scenarios. Different studies concentrate partially on their own expected results, which highlights a useful reference for future research that expresses both the transdisciplinary and multidimensional approach towards human diversity, ergonomics, economics, manufacturability, and sustainability in a comprehensive way. Besides, it is worth acknowledging the limitations—limited statistical power in result validation, lack of generalizability of research findings, further requirements of the supporting methods, lack of validation of the effectiveness—to enhance the robustness of the research findings. This will inspire research applications to both industry and research.

Third, the opportunities for future research regarding HCD in the context of Industry 4.0 are also provided to advance the research contributions in the coming years through the adoption of the lessons learnt from the previous works. Despite the rigor, relevance and expanse of this study, there are acknowledged limitations. Primarily, we applied the strict protocol of SLR with which some relevant papers might be overlooked. To minimize this, we searched eight databases to ensure a sufficient number of papers relevant to this topic to compensate for the missed papers—missed due to less relevance—by supplementing more relevant papers. Furthermore, we limited the papers to only peer-reviewed journal articles as a means to guarantee the quality of the publications. We also acknowledge that the selection of the topic, definition of search terms, and interpretation of the results are inseparable from our previous knowledge on the topic. Lastly, we assume that considerable knowledge resides among practitioners’ experience and the grey literature.

The particular interest in this topic is the question of how to take advantage of literature, overcome its own acknowledged limitations, and advance research contributions in the body of knowledge. The first two questions are provided in this study, and the last one can be achieved by collaborative research in which transdisciplinary and cross-sectorial research centres and industrial partners join forces to contribute to a comprehensive common understanding of HCD in the transdisciplinary and multidimensional approach towards human diversity, ergonomics, economics, manufacturability and sustainability. This is also the approach for our next contribution to the field of HCD.

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This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant No. 814078.

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Nguyen Ngoc, H., Lasa, G. & Iriarte, I. Human-centred design in industry 4.0: case study review and opportunities for future research. J Intell Manuf 33 , 35–76 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10845-021-01796-x

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Home » Case Study – Methods, Examples and Guide

Case Study – Methods, Examples and Guide

Table of Contents

A case study is a research method that involves an in-depth examination and analysis of a particular phenomenon or case, such as an individual, organization, community, event, or situation.

It is a qualitative research approach that aims to provide a detailed and comprehensive understanding of the case being studied. Case studies typically involve multiple sources of data, including interviews, observations, documents, and artifacts, which are analyzed using various techniques, such as content analysis, thematic analysis, and grounded theory. The findings of a case study are often used to develop theories, inform policy or practice, or generate new research questions.

Types of Case Study

Types and Methods of Case Study are as follows:

Single-Case Study

A single-case study is an in-depth analysis of a single case. This type of case study is useful when the researcher wants to understand a specific phenomenon in detail.

For Example , A researcher might conduct a single-case study on a particular individual to understand their experiences with a particular health condition or a specific organization to explore their management practices. The researcher collects data from multiple sources, such as interviews, observations, and documents, and uses various techniques to analyze the data, such as content analysis or thematic analysis. The findings of a single-case study are often used to generate new research questions, develop theories, or inform policy or practice.

Multiple-Case Study

A multiple-case study involves the analysis of several cases that are similar in nature. This type of case study is useful when the researcher wants to identify similarities and differences between the cases.

For Example, a researcher might conduct a multiple-case study on several companies to explore the factors that contribute to their success or failure. The researcher collects data from each case, compares and contrasts the findings, and uses various techniques to analyze the data, such as comparative analysis or pattern-matching. The findings of a multiple-case study can be used to develop theories, inform policy or practice, or generate new research questions.

Exploratory Case Study

An exploratory case study is used to explore a new or understudied phenomenon. This type of case study is useful when the researcher wants to generate hypotheses or theories about the phenomenon.

For Example, a researcher might conduct an exploratory case study on a new technology to understand its potential impact on society. The researcher collects data from multiple sources, such as interviews, observations, and documents, and uses various techniques to analyze the data, such as grounded theory or content analysis. The findings of an exploratory case study can be used to generate new research questions, develop theories, or inform policy or practice.

Descriptive Case Study

A descriptive case study is used to describe a particular phenomenon in detail. This type of case study is useful when the researcher wants to provide a comprehensive account of the phenomenon.

For Example, a researcher might conduct a descriptive case study on a particular community to understand its social and economic characteristics. The researcher collects data from multiple sources, such as interviews, observations, and documents, and uses various techniques to analyze the data, such as content analysis or thematic analysis. The findings of a descriptive case study can be used to inform policy or practice or generate new research questions.

Instrumental Case Study

An instrumental case study is used to understand a particular phenomenon that is instrumental in achieving a particular goal. This type of case study is useful when the researcher wants to understand the role of the phenomenon in achieving the goal.

For Example, a researcher might conduct an instrumental case study on a particular policy to understand its impact on achieving a particular goal, such as reducing poverty. The researcher collects data from multiple sources, such as interviews, observations, and documents, and uses various techniques to analyze the data, such as content analysis or thematic analysis. The findings of an instrumental case study can be used to inform policy or practice or generate new research questions.

Case Study Data Collection Methods

Here are some common data collection methods for case studies:

Interviews involve asking questions to individuals who have knowledge or experience relevant to the case study. Interviews can be structured (where the same questions are asked to all participants) or unstructured (where the interviewer follows up on the responses with further questions). Interviews can be conducted in person, over the phone, or through video conferencing.

Observations

Observations involve watching and recording the behavior and activities of individuals or groups relevant to the case study. Observations can be participant (where the researcher actively participates in the activities) or non-participant (where the researcher observes from a distance). Observations can be recorded using notes, audio or video recordings, or photographs.

Documents can be used as a source of information for case studies. Documents can include reports, memos, emails, letters, and other written materials related to the case study. Documents can be collected from the case study participants or from public sources.

Surveys involve asking a set of questions to a sample of individuals relevant to the case study. Surveys can be administered in person, over the phone, through mail or email, or online. Surveys can be used to gather information on attitudes, opinions, or behaviors related to the case study.

Artifacts are physical objects relevant to the case study. Artifacts can include tools, equipment, products, or other objects that provide insights into the case study phenomenon.

How to conduct Case Study Research

Conducting a case study research involves several steps that need to be followed to ensure the quality and rigor of the study. Here are the steps to conduct case study research:

• Define the research questions: The first step in conducting a case study research is to define the research questions. The research questions should be specific, measurable, and relevant to the case study phenomenon under investigation.
• Select the case: The next step is to select the case or cases to be studied. The case should be relevant to the research questions and should provide rich and diverse data that can be used to answer the research questions.
• Collect data: Data can be collected using various methods, such as interviews, observations, documents, surveys, and artifacts. The data collection method should be selected based on the research questions and the nature of the case study phenomenon.
• Analyze the data: The data collected from the case study should be analyzed using various techniques, such as content analysis, thematic analysis, or grounded theory. The analysis should be guided by the research questions and should aim to provide insights and conclusions relevant to the research questions.
• Draw conclusions: The conclusions drawn from the case study should be based on the data analysis and should be relevant to the research questions. The conclusions should be supported by evidence and should be clearly stated.
• Validate the findings: The findings of the case study should be validated by reviewing the data and the analysis with participants or other experts in the field. This helps to ensure the validity and reliability of the findings.
• Write the report: The final step is to write the report of the case study research. The report should provide a clear description of the case study phenomenon, the research questions, the data collection methods, the data analysis, the findings, and the conclusions. The report should be written in a clear and concise manner and should follow the guidelines for academic writing.

Examples of Case Study

Here are some examples of case study research:

• The Hawthorne Studies : Conducted between 1924 and 1932, the Hawthorne Studies were a series of case studies conducted by Elton Mayo and his colleagues to examine the impact of work environment on employee productivity. The studies were conducted at the Hawthorne Works plant of the Western Electric Company in Chicago and included interviews, observations, and experiments.
• The Stanford Prison Experiment: Conducted in 1971, the Stanford Prison Experiment was a case study conducted by Philip Zimbardo to examine the psychological effects of power and authority. The study involved simulating a prison environment and assigning participants to the role of guards or prisoners. The study was controversial due to the ethical issues it raised.
• The Challenger Disaster: The Challenger Disaster was a case study conducted to examine the causes of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion in 1986. The study included interviews, observations, and analysis of data to identify the technical, organizational, and cultural factors that contributed to the disaster.
• The Enron Scandal: The Enron Scandal was a case study conducted to examine the causes of the Enron Corporation’s bankruptcy in 2001. The study included interviews, analysis of financial data, and review of documents to identify the accounting practices, corporate culture, and ethical issues that led to the company’s downfall.
• The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster : The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster was a case study conducted to examine the causes of the nuclear accident that occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan in 2011. The study included interviews, analysis of data, and review of documents to identify the technical, organizational, and cultural factors that contributed to the disaster.

Application of Case Study

Case studies have a wide range of applications across various fields and industries. Here are some examples:

Business and Management

Case studies are widely used in business and management to examine real-life situations and develop problem-solving skills. Case studies can help students and professionals to develop a deep understanding of business concepts, theories, and best practices.

Case studies are used in healthcare to examine patient care, treatment options, and outcomes. Case studies can help healthcare professionals to develop critical thinking skills, diagnose complex medical conditions, and develop effective treatment plans.

Case studies are used in education to examine teaching and learning practices. Case studies can help educators to develop effective teaching strategies, evaluate student progress, and identify areas for improvement.

Social Sciences

Case studies are widely used in social sciences to examine human behavior, social phenomena, and cultural practices. Case studies can help researchers to develop theories, test hypotheses, and gain insights into complex social issues.

Law and Ethics

Case studies are used in law and ethics to examine legal and ethical dilemmas. Case studies can help lawyers, policymakers, and ethical professionals to develop critical thinking skills, analyze complex cases, and make informed decisions.

Purpose of Case Study

The purpose of a case study is to provide a detailed analysis of a specific phenomenon, issue, or problem in its real-life context. A case study is a qualitative research method that involves the in-depth exploration and analysis of a particular case, which can be an individual, group, organization, event, or community.

The primary purpose of a case study is to generate a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the case, including its history, context, and dynamics. Case studies can help researchers to identify and examine the underlying factors, processes, and mechanisms that contribute to the case and its outcomes. This can help to develop a more accurate and detailed understanding of the case, which can inform future research, practice, or policy.

Case studies can also serve other purposes, including:

• Illustrating a theory or concept: Case studies can be used to illustrate and explain theoretical concepts and frameworks, providing concrete examples of how they can be applied in real-life situations.
• Developing hypotheses: Case studies can help to generate hypotheses about the causal relationships between different factors and outcomes, which can be tested through further research.
• Providing insight into complex issues: Case studies can provide insights into complex and multifaceted issues, which may be difficult to understand through other research methods.
• Informing practice or policy: Case studies can be used to inform practice or policy by identifying best practices, lessons learned, or areas for improvement.

Advantages of Case Study Research

There are several advantages of case study research, including:

• In-depth exploration: Case study research allows for a detailed exploration and analysis of a specific phenomenon, issue, or problem in its real-life context. This can provide a comprehensive understanding of the case and its dynamics, which may not be possible through other research methods.
• Rich data: Case study research can generate rich and detailed data, including qualitative data such as interviews, observations, and documents. This can provide a nuanced understanding of the case and its complexity.
• Holistic perspective: Case study research allows for a holistic perspective of the case, taking into account the various factors, processes, and mechanisms that contribute to the case and its outcomes. This can help to develop a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of the case.
• Theory development: Case study research can help to develop and refine theories and concepts by providing empirical evidence and concrete examples of how they can be applied in real-life situations.
• Practical application: Case study research can inform practice or policy by identifying best practices, lessons learned, or areas for improvement.
• Contextualization: Case study research takes into account the specific context in which the case is situated, which can help to understand how the case is influenced by the social, cultural, and historical factors of its environment.

Limitations of Case Study Research

There are several limitations of case study research, including:

• Limited generalizability : Case studies are typically focused on a single case or a small number of cases, which limits the generalizability of the findings. The unique characteristics of the case may not be applicable to other contexts or populations, which may limit the external validity of the research.
• Biased sampling: Case studies may rely on purposive or convenience sampling, which can introduce bias into the sample selection process. This may limit the representativeness of the sample and the generalizability of the findings.
• Subjectivity: Case studies rely on the interpretation of the researcher, which can introduce subjectivity into the analysis. The researcher’s own biases, assumptions, and perspectives may influence the findings, which may limit the objectivity of the research.
• Limited control: Case studies are typically conducted in naturalistic settings, which limits the control that the researcher has over the environment and the variables being studied. This may limit the ability to establish causal relationships between variables.
• Time-consuming: Case studies can be time-consuming to conduct, as they typically involve a detailed exploration and analysis of a specific case. This may limit the feasibility of conducting multiple case studies or conducting case studies in a timely manner.
• Resource-intensive: Case studies may require significant resources, including time, funding, and expertise. This may limit the ability of researchers to conduct case studies in resource-constrained settings.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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Case study research and causal inference

Judith green.

1 Wellcome Centre for Cultures & Environments of Health, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

Benjamin Hanckel

2 Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia

Mark Petticrew

3 Department of Public Health, Environments & Society, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK

Sara Paparini

4 Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

5 Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

Associated Data

Not applicable; no new data generated in this study.

For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a ‘Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising.

Case study methodology is widely used in health research, but has had a marginal role in evaluative studies, given it is often assumed that case studies offer little for making causal inferences. We undertook a narrative review of examples of case study research from public health and health services evaluations, with a focus on interventions addressing health inequalities. We identified five types of contribution these case studies made to evidence for causal relationships. These contributions relate to: (1) evidence about system actors’ own theories of causality; (2) demonstrative examples of causal relationships; (3) evidence about causal mechanisms; (4) evidence about the conditions under which causal mechanisms operate; and (5) inference about causality in complex systems. Case studies can and do contribute to understanding causal relationships. More transparency in the reporting of case studies would enhance their discoverability, and aid the development of a robust and pluralistic evidence base for public health and health services interventions. To strengthen the contribution that case studies make to that evidence base, researchers could: draw on wider methods from the political and social sciences, in particular on methods for robust analysis; carefully consider what population their case is a case ‘of’; and explicate the rationale used for making causal inferences.

Case study research is widely used in studies of context in public health and health services research to make sense of implementation and service delivery as enacted across complex systems. A recent meta-narrative review identified four broad, overlapping traditions in this body of work: developing and testing complex interventions; analysing change in organisations; undertaking realist evaluations; and studying complex change naturalistically [ 1 ]. Case studies can provide essential thick description of interventions, context and systems; qualitative understanding of the mechanisms of interventions; and evidence of how interventions are adapted in the ‘real’ world [ 2 , 3 ].

However, in evaluative health research, case study designs remain relegated to a minor, supporting role [ 4 , 5 ], typically at the bottom of evidence hierarchies. This relegation is largely due to assumptions that they offer little for making the kinds of causal claims that are essential to evaluating the effects of interventions. The strengths of deep, thick studies of specific cases are conventionally set against the benefits of ‘variable-based’ designs, with the former positioned as descriptive, exploratory or illustrative, and the latter as providing the strongest evidence for making causal claims about the links between interventions and outcomes. In conventional hierarchies of evidence, the primary evidence for making causal claims comes from randomised controlled trials (RCTs), in which the linear relationship between a change in one phenomenon and a later change in another can be delineated from other causal factors. The classic account of causality drawn on in epidemiology requires identifying that the relationship between two phenomena is characterised by co-variation; time order; a plausible relationship; and a lack of competing explanations [ 6 ]. The theoretical and pragmatic limitations of RCT designs for robust and generalizable evaluation of interventions in complex systems are now well-rehearsed [ 2 , 7 – 10 ]. In theory, though, random selection from a population to intervention exposure maximises ability to make causal claims: randomisation minimises risks of confounding, and enables both an unbiased estimate of the effect size of the intervention and extrapolation to the larger population [ 6 ]. Guidance for evaluations in which the intervention cannot be manipulated, such as in natural experiments, therefore typically focuses on methods for addressing threats to validity from non-random allocation in order to strengthen the credibility of probabilistic causal effect estimates [ 4 , 11 ].

This is, however, not the only kind of causal logic. Case study research typically draws on other logics for understanding causation and making causal inferences. We illustrate some of the contributions made by case studies, drawing on a narrative review of research relating to one particularly enduring and complex problem: inequalities in health. The causal chains linking interventions to equity outcomes are long and complex, with recognised limitations in the evidence base for ‘what works’ [ 12 ]. Case study research, we argue, has a critical role to play in making claims about whether, how and why interventions reduce, mitigate, or exacerbate inequalities. Our examples are drawn from a broader review of case study research [ 1 ] and supporting literature reviews [ 5 ], from which we focused on cases which had an explanatory aim, and which shed light on how interventions in public health or health services might reduce, create or sustain inequality. In this paper, we: i) outline some different kinds of evidence relevant to causal relationships that can be  derived from case study research; ii) outline what is needed for case study research to contribute to explanatory, as well as exploratory claims; and iii) advocate for greater clarity in reporting case study research to foster discoverability.

Cases and causes

There are considerable challenges in defining case study designs or approaches in ways that adequately delineate them from other research designs. Yin [ 13 ], for instance, one of the most highly cited source texts on case studies in health research [ 1 ], resists providing a definition, instead suggesting case study research is more a strategy for doing empirical research. Gerring [ 14 ] defines case study research as: “ an intensive study of a single unit for the purpose of understanding a larger class of (similar) units ” (p342, emphasis in original). This definition is useful in suggesting the basis for the inferences drawn from cases, and the need to consider the relationships between the ‘case’ (and phenomena observed within it) and the population from which it is drawn. Gerring notes that studies of single cases may have a greater “affinity” for descriptive aims, but that they can furnish “evidence for causal propositions” ( [ 14 ], p347). Case studies are, he suggests, more likely to be useful in elucidating deterministic causes: those conditions that are necessary and/or sufficient for an outcome, whereas variable based designs have advantages for demonstrating probabilistic causation, where the aim is to estimate the likelihood of two phenomena being causally related. Case studies provide evidence for the mechanisms of causal relationships (e.g. through process tracing, through observing two variables interacting in the real world) and corroboration of causal relationships (for instance, through pattern matching).

Gerring’s argument, drawing on political science examples, is that there is nothing epistemologically distinct about research using the case study: rather, it has particular affinities with certain styles of causal modelling. We take this as a point of departure to consider not whether case studies can furnish evidence to help with causal inference in health research, but rather how they have done this. From our examples on case study research on inequalities in health, we identify the kinds of claims that relate to causality that were made. We note that some relate to (1) Actors’ accounts of causality : that is, the theories of those studied about if, how and why interventions work. Other types of claim use various kinds of comparative analytic logic to elucidate evidence of causal relationships between phenomena. These claims include: (2) Demonstrations of causal relationships – in which evidence from one case is sufficient for identifying a plausible causal relationship; (3) Mechanisms – evidence of the mechanisms through which causal relationships work; (4) Conditions —evidence of the conditions under which such mechanisms operate; and (5) Complex causality —evidence for outcomes that arise from complex causality within a system. This list is neither mutually exclusive, nor exhaustive: many case studies aim to do several of these (and some more). It is also a pragmatic rather than theoretical list, focusing on the kinds of evidence claimed by researchers rather than the formal methodological underpinnings of causal claims (for a discussion of the latter, see Rohlfing [ 15 ]).

What kinds of causal evidence do case studies provide?

Actors’ accounts of causality.

This is perhaps the most common kind of evidence provided by case study research. Case studies, through in-depth research on the actors within systems, can generate evidence about how those actors themselves account for causal relationships between interventions and outcomes. This is an overt aim of many realist evaluation studies, which focus on real forces or processes that exist in the world that can provide insight into causal mechanisms for change.

Ford and colleagues [ 16 ], for example, used a series of five case studies of local health systems to explore socio-economic inequalities in unplanned hospital admission. Cases were selected on the basis of either narrowing or widening inequalities in admission, with a realist evaluation focused on delineating the context-mechanisms-outcome (CMO) configurations in each setting, to develop a broader theory of change for addressing inequalities. The case study approach used a mix of methods, including drawing on documentary data to assess the credibility of mechanisms proposed by health providers. The authors identified 17 distinct CMO configurations; and five factors that were related to trends for inequalities in emergency admissions, including health service factors (primary care workforce challenges, case finding and proactive case management) and those external to the health service (e.g., financial constraints on public services, residential gentrification). Ford and colleagues noted that none of the CMO configurations were clearly associated with improved or worsening trends in inequalities in admission.

Clearly, actors’ accounts of causality are not in themselves evidence of causality. Ford and colleagues noted that they interrogated accounts for plausibility (e.g. that interventions mentioned were prior to effects claimed) and triangulated these accounts with other sources of data, but that inability to empirically corroborate the hypothesized CMO links limited their ability to make claims about causal inference. This is crucial: actors in a system may be aware of the forces and processes shaping change but unaware of counterfactuals, and they are unlikely to have any privileged insight into whether factors are causal or simply co-occurring (see, for instance, Milton et. al. [ 17 ] on how commonly cited ‘barriers’ in accounts of not doing evaluations are also evident in actors’ accounts of doing successful evaluations). Over-interpretation of qualitative accounts of insiders’ claims about causal relationships as if they provide conclusive evidence of causal relationships is poor methodology.

This does not mean that actors’ accounts are not of value. First, in realist evaluation, as in Ford and colleagues’ study [ 16 ], these accounts provide the initial theories of change for thinking about the potential causal pathways in logic models of interventions. Second, insiders’ accounts of causality are part of the system that is being explained. An example comes from Mead and colleagues [ 18 ], who used a case study drawing largely on qualitative interviews to explore “how local actors from public health, and the wider workforce, make sense of and work on social inequalities in health” ( [ 18 ] p168). This used a case study of a partnership in northwest England to address an enduring challenge in inequalities policy: the tendency for policies that address upstream health determinants to transform, in practice, to focus more on behavioural and individual level factors . Local public health actors in the partnership recognised the structural causes of unequal health outcomes, yet discourses of policy action tended to focus only on the downstream, more individualising levels of health, and on personal choice and agency as targets for intervention. Professionals conceptualised action on inequality as relating only to the health of the poorest, rather than as a problem of a gradient in health outcomes across society. There was a geographical localism in their approach, which framed particular places as constellations of health and social problems. Drawing on theory from figurational sociology, Mead and colleagues note that actors’ own accounts are the starting point of an analysis, which then puts those accounts into play with theory about how such discourses are reproduced. The researchers suggest that partnership working itself exacerbated the individualising frameworks used to orient action, as it became a hegemonic framing, reducing the possibilities for partnerships to transform health inequalities. Here, then, a case study approach is used to shed light on the causes of a common failure in policies addressing inequalities. The authors take seriously the divergence of actors’ own accounts of causality and those of other sources, and analyse these as part of the system.

Finally, insider accounts should be taken seriously as contributing to evidence about causal inference through shedding light on the complex looping effects of theoretical models of causality and public accounts. For instance, Smith and Anderson [ 19 ], drawing on a meta-ethnographic literature review of ‘lay theorising’ about health inequalities, note that, counter to common assumptions, public understanding of the structural causes of health inequalities is sophisticated: but that it may be disavowed to avoid stigma and shame and to reassert some agency. This is an important finding for informing knowledge exchange, suggesting that further ‘awareness raising’ may be unnecessary for policy change, and counter-productive in needlessly increasing stigma and shame.

Demonstrations of causal relationships

When strategically sampled, and rooted in a sound theoretical framework, studies of single cases can provide evidence for generalizable causal inferences. The strongest examples are perhaps those that operate as ‘black swans’ for deterministic claims, in that one case may be all that is needed to show that a commonly held assumption is not generalizable. That is, a case study can demonstrate unequivocally that one phenomenon is not inevitably related to another. These can come from cases sampled because they are extreme or unusual. Prior’s [ 20 ] study of a single man in a psychiatric institution in Northern Ireland, for instance, showed that, counter to Goffman’s [ 21 ] original theory of how ‘total institutions’ lead to stigmatisation and depersonalisation, the effects of institutionalisation depended on context—in this case, how the institution related to the local community and the availability of alternative sources of self-worth available to residents.

Strategically sampled typical cases can also provide demonstrative evidence of causal relationships. To take the enduring health services challenge of inequalities in self-referral to emergency care, Hudgins and Rising’s [ 22 ] case study of a single patient is used to debunk a common assumption that high use of emergency care is related to inappropriate care-seeking by low-income patients. They look in detail at the case of “a 51-year-old low-income, recently insured, African American man in Philadelphia (USA) who had two recent ED [emergency department] visits for evaluation of frequent headaches and described fear of being at risk for a stroke.” ( [ 22 ] p50). Drawing on theories of structural violence and patient subjectivity, they use this single case to shed light on why emergency department use may appear inappropriate to providers. They analyse the interplay of gender roles, employment, and insurance status in generating competing drivers of health seeking, and point to the ways in which current policies deterring self-referral do not align well with micro- and macro-level determinants of service use. The study authors also note that because their methods generate data on ‘why’ as well ‘what’ people do, they can “lay the groundwork” ( [ 22 ], p54] for developing future interventions. Here, again, a single case is sufficient. In understanding the causal pathways that led to this patient’s use of emergency care, it is clear why policies addressing inequalities through deterring low-income users would be unlikely to work.

Mechanisms: how causal relationships operate

A strength of case study approaches compared with variable-based designs is furnishing evidence of how causal relationships operate, deriving from both direct observations of causal processes and from analysis of comparisons within and between cases. All cases contain multiple observations; variations can be observed over time and space, across or within cases [ 14 ]. Observing regularities, co-variation and deviant or surprising findings, and then using processes of analytic induction [ 23 ] or abductive logic [ 24 ] to derive, develop and test causal theories using observations from the case, can build a picture of causal pathways.

Process tracing is one formal qualitative methodology for doing this. Widely used in political and policy studies, but less in health evaluations [ 25 ], process tracing links outcomes with their causes, focusing on the mechanisms that link events on causal pathways, and on the strength of evidence for making connections on that causal chain. This requires sound theoretical knowledge (such that credible hypotheses can be developed), well described cases (ideally at different time points), observed causal processes (the activities that transfer causes to effects), and careful assessment of evidence against tests of varying strength for the necessity and sufficiency for accepting or rejecting a candidate hypothesis [ 26 , 27 ]. In health policy, process tracing methods have been combined to good effect with quantitative measures to examine casual processes leading to outcomes of interest. Campbell et. al. [ 28 ], for instance, used process tracing to look at four case studies of countries that had made progress towards universal health coverage (measured through routine data on maternal and neonatal health indicators), to identify key causal factors related to health care workforce.

An example of the use of process tracing in evaluation comes from Lohmann and colleagues’ [ 25 ] case study of a single country, Burkina Faso, to examine why performance based financing (PBF) fails to improve equity. PBF, coupled with interventions to improve health care take up among the poor, aims to improve health equity in low and middle-income countries, yet impact evaluations suggest that these benefits are typically not realised. This case study drew on data from the quantitative impact assessment; programme documentation; the intervention process evaluation; and primary qualitative research for the process tracing, in the light of the theory of change of the intervention. Lohmann and colleagues [ 25 ] identified that a number of conditions that would have been necessary for the intervention to work had not been met (such as eligible patients not receiving the card needed to access health care or providers not receiving timely reimbursement). A key finding was that although implementation challenges were a partial cause of policy failure, other causal conditions were external to the intervention, such as lack of attention to the non-health care costs incurred by the poorest to access care. Again, a single case, if there are good grounds for extrapolating to similar contexts (i.e., those in which transport is required to access health care), is enough to demonstrate a necessary part of the causal pathway between PBF and intended equity outcomes.

Conditions under which causal mechanisms operate

The example of ‘transport access’ as a necessary condition for PBF interventions to ‘work’ also illustrates a fourth type of causal evidence: that relating to the transferability of interventions. Transferable causal claims are essential for useful evidence: “(f)or policy and practice we do not need to know ‘it works somewhere’. We need evidence for ‘it-will-work-for-us’ claims: the treatment will produce the desired outcome in our situation as implemented there” ( [ 8 ] p1401). Some causal mechanisms operate widely (using a parachute will reduce injury from jumping from a plane; taking aspirin will relieve pain); others less so. In the context of health services and public health research, few interventions are likely to be widely generalizable, as the mechanisms will operate differently across contexts [ 7 ]. This context dependency is at the heart of realist evaluations, with the assumption that underlying causal mechanisms require particular contexts in order to operate, hence the focus on ‘how, where, and for whom’ interventions work [ 29 ]. Making useful claims therefore requires other kinds of evidence, relating to what Cartwright and Munro [ 30 ] call the ‘capacities’ of the intervention: what power it has to work reliably, what stops it working, what other conditions are needed for it to work. This evidence is critical for assessing whether an intervention is likely to work in a given context and to assess the intended and unintended consequences of intervention adoption and implementation. Cartwright and Munro’s recommendation is therefore to study causal powers rather than causes. That is, as well as interrogating whether the intervention ‘causes’ a particular outcome, it is also necessary to address the potential for and stability of that causal effect. To do that entails addressing a broader range of questions about the causal relationship, such as how the intervention operates in order to bring about changes in outcomes; what other conditions need to be present; what might constrain this effect; what other factors within the system also promote or constrain those effects; and what happens when different capacities interact? [ 30 ]. Case study research can be vital in providing this kind of evidence on the capacities of interventions [ 31 ].

One example is from Gibson and colleagues [ 32 ], who use within-case comparisons to shed light on why a ‘social prescribing’ intervention may have different effects across socioeconomic classes. These interventions, typically entailing link workers who connect people with complex health care needs to local services and resources, are often framed as a way to address enduring health inequalities. Drawing on sociological theory on how social class is reproduced through socially structured and unequal distribution of resources (‘capitals’), and through how these shape people’s practices and dispositions, Gibson and colleagues [ 32 ] explicate how capitals and dispositions shaped encounters with the intervention. Their analysis of similarities and differences within their case (of different clients) in the context of theory enables them to abstract inferences from the case. Drawing out the ways in which more advantaged clients mobilised capital in their pursuit of health, with dispositions more closely aligned to the intervention, they unravel classed differences in ability to benefit from the intervention, with less advantaged clients inevitably having ‘shorter horizons’ focused on day to day challenges: “This challenges the claim that social prescribing can reduce inequalities, instead suggesting it has the potential to exacerbate existing inequalities” ( [ 32 ], p6).

Case studies can shed light on the capacities of interventions to improve or exacerbate inequalities, including identifying unforeseen consequences. Hanckel and colleagues [ 33 , 34 ], for example, used a case study approach to explore implementation of a physical health intervention involving whole classes of children running for 15 min each day in the playground in schools in south London, UK. This documented considerable adaption of the intervention at the level of school, class and pupil, and identified different pathways through which the intervention might impact on inequalities. In terms of access, the intervention appeared to be equitable, in that there was no evidence of disproportionate roll out to schools with more affluent pupils or to those with fewer minority ethnic pupils [ 33 ]. However, identifying the ‘capacities’ of the intervention also identified other pathways through which it could have negative equity effects. The authors found that in practice, the intervention emphasised body weight rather than physical activity, and intervention roll-out reinforced class and ethnicity-based stigmatising discourses about lower income neighbourhoods [ 34 ].

Complex causality

There is increasing recognition that the systems that reproduce unequal health outcomes are complex: that is, that they consist of multiple interacting components that cannot be studied in isolation, and that change is likely to be non-linear, characterised by, for instance, phase shifts or feedback loops [ 35 ]. This has two rather different implications. First, case study designs can be particularly beneficial for taking a system perspective on interventions. Case studies enable a focus on aspects that are not well explicated through other designs, such as how context interacts with interventions within systems [ 7 ], or on how multiple conditional pathways might link interventions and outcomes [ 36 ]. Second, when causation is not linear, but ‘emergent’, in that it is not reducible to the accumulated changes at lower levels, evaluation designs focused on only one outcome at one level (such as weight loss in individuals) may fail to identify important effects. Case studies have an invaluable role here in unpacking and surfacing these effects at different levels within the systems within which interventions and services are delivered. One example is transport systems, which have been the focus of considerable public health interest to encourage more ‘active’ modes, in which more of the population walk or cycle, and fewer drive. However, more simplistic evaluations looking at one part of a causal chain (such as that between traffic calming interventions and local mode shift) may fail to appreciate how systems are dynamic, and that causation might be emergent. This is evident in a case study of transport policy impacts from Sheller [ 37 ], who takes the case of Philadelphia, USA, to reveal how this post-car trend has racialized effects that can exacerbate inequality. Weaving in data from participant observations, historical documentary sources and statistical evidence of declining car use, Sheller documents the racialized impacts of transport policies which may have reduced car use and encouraged active modes overall, but which have largely prioritised ‘young white’ mobility in the context of local gentrification and neglect of public transit.

One approach to synthesising evidence from multiple case studies to make claims about complex causation is Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), which combines quantitative methods (based on Boolean algebra) with detailed qualitative understanding of a small to medium N sample of cases. This has strengths for identifying multiple pathways to outcomes, asymmetrical sets of conditions which lead to success or failure, or ‘conjunctural causation’, whereby some conditions are only causally linked to outcomes in relation to others [ 38 ]. There is growing interest in using these approaches in evaluative health studies [ 39 ]. One example relating to the effectiveness of interventions addressing inequalities in health comes from Blackman and colleagues [ 36 ], who explored configurations of conditions which did or did not lead to narrowing inequalities in teenage conception rates across a series of local areas as cases. This identified some surprising findings, including that ‘basic’ rather than good or exemplary standards of commissioning were associated with narrowing the equity gap, and that the proportion of minority ethnic people in the population was a key condition.

Not all case study research aims to contribute to causal inference, and neither should it [ 1 , 5 , 40 ]. However, it can. We have identified five ways in which case study evidence has contributed to causal explanations in relation to a particularly intractable challenge: inequalities in health. It is therefore time to stop claiming that case study designs have only a supporting role to play in evaluative health research. To develop a theoretical evidence base on ‘what works’, and how, in health services and public health, particularly around complex issues such as addressing unequal health outcomes, we need to draw on a greater range of evidential resources for informing decisions than is currently used. Best explanations are unlikely to be made from single studies based on one kind of causality, but instead will demand some kind of evidential pluralism [ 41 ]. That is, one single study, of any design, is unlikely to generate evidence for all links in complex causal chains between an intervention and health outcomes. We need a bricolage of evidence from a diverse range of designs [ 42 ] to make robust and credible cases for what will improve health and health equity. This will include evidence from case studies, both from single and small N studies, and from syntheses of findings from multiple cases.

Our focus on case studies that shed light on interventions for health inequalities identified the critical role that case studies can play in theorising, illuminating and making sense of: system actors’ own causal reasoning; whether there are causal links between intervention and outcome; what mechanism(s) might link them; when, where and for whom these causal relationships operate; and how unequal outcomes can be generated from the operation of complex systems. These examples draw on a range of different theoretical and methodological approaches, often from the wider political and social sciences. The approaches illustrated are rooted in very different, even incompatible, philosophical traditions: what researchers understand by ‘causality’ is diverse [ 43 ]. However, there are two commonalities across this diversity that suggest some conditions for producing good case studies that can generate evidence to support causal inferences. The first is the need for theoretically informed and comparative analysis. As Gerring [ 14 ] notes, causal inferences rely on comparisons – across units or time within a case, or between cases. It is comparison that drives the ability to make claims about the potential of interventions to produce change in outcomes of interest, and under what conditions. There are a range of approaches to qualitative data analysis, and choice of method has to be appropriate for the kinds of causal logics being explicated, and the availability of data on particular phenomena within the case. Typically, though, this will require analysis that goes beyond descriptive thematic analysis [ 31 ]. Approaches such as process tracing or analytic induction require both fine-grained and rigorous comparative analysis, and a sound theoretical underpinning that provides a framework for making credible inferences about the relationships between phenomena within the case and to the wider population from which the case is selected.

This leads to the second commonality: the need to clarify what the case is a case ‘of’, and how it relates to other candidate cases. What constitutes a ‘case’ is inevitably study specific. The examples we have drawn on include: PBF in a country [ 25 ], transport systems in a city [ 37 ], and a social prescribing intervention in primary care [ 32 ]. Clearly, in other contexts, each of these ‘cases’ could be sampling units within variable based studies (of financing systems, or countries; of infrastructures systems, or cities in a state; of particular kinds of service intervention, or primary care systems). Conversely, these cases could be populations within which lower level phenomena (districts, neighbourhoods, patients) are studied. What leads to appropriate generalisations about causal claims is a sound theorisation of the similarities and particularities of the case compared with other candidate cases: how Burkina Faso has commonalities with, or differences from, other settings in which PBF has failed to improve equity; or the contexts of gentrification and residential churn that make Philadelphia similar to other cities in the US; or the ways in which class-based dispositions and practices intersect with similar types of service provisions.

A critical question remains: How can well-conducted case study evidence be better integrated into the evidence base? Calls for greater recognition for case study designs within health research are hardly new: Flyvberg’s advocacy for a greater role for case studies in the social sciences [ 44 ] has now been cited around 20,000 times, and calls for methodological pluralism in health research go back decades [ 42 , 45 , 46 ]. Yet, case studies remain somewhat neglected, with ongoing misconceptions about their limited role, despite calls for evidence based medicine to incorporate evidence for mechanisms as complementary to evidence of correlation, rather than as inferior [ 47 ]. Even where the value of case studies for contributing to causal inference is recognised, searching for good evidence is not straightforward. Case studies are neither consistently defined nor necessarily well reported. Some of the examples in this paper do not use the term ‘case study’ in the title or abstract, although they meet our definition. Conversely, many small scale qualitative studies describe themselves as ‘case studies’, but focus on thick description rather than generalisability, and are not aiming to contribute to evaluative evidence. It is therefore challenging, currently, to undertake a more systematic review of empirical material. Forthcoming guidance on reporting case studies of context in complex systems aims to aid discoverability and transparency of reporting (Shaw S, et al: TRIPLE C Reporting Principles for Case study evaluations of the role of Context in Complex interventions, under review). This recommends including ‘case study’ in the title, clarifying how terms are used, and explicating the philosophical base of the study. To further advance the usefulness of case study evidence, we suggest that where an aim is to contribute to causal explanations, researchers should, in addition, specify their rationales for making causal inferences, and identify what broader class of phenomena their case is a case ‘of’.

Conclusions

Case study research can and does contribute to evidence for causal inferences. On challenging issues such as addressing health inequalities, we have shown how case studies provide more than detailed description of context or process. Contributions include: describing actors’ accounts of causal relationships; demonstrating theoretically plausible causal relationships; identifying mechanisms which link cause and effect; identifying the conditions under which causal relationships hold; and researching complex causation.

Acknowledgements

The research underpinning this paper was conducted as part of the Triple C study. We gratefully acknowledge the input of the wider study team, and that of the participants at a workshop held to discuss forthcoming guidance on reporting case study research.

Abbreviations

Authors’ contributions.

BH, JG and MP drafted the first version of the paper, which was revised with theoretical input from SS and SP. All authors contributed to the paper and have reviewed and approved the final manuscript.

The research was funded by the Medical Research Council (MR/S014632/1). JG is supported with funding from the Wellcome Trust (WT203109/Z/16/Z). Additional funding for SP and SS salaries over the course of the study was provided by the UK National Institute for Health Research Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC-1215–20008), Wellcome Trust (WT104830MA; 221457/Z/20/Z) and the University of Oxford's Higher Education Innovation Fund.

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors. Funding bodies had no input to the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data or preparation of this paper.

Availability of data and materials

Declarations.

Not applicable.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Research and Training Centre in the Construction Trades / ACDF*

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• Area Area of this architecture project Area:  57000 ft²
• Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2010
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Text description provided by the architects. La Cité collégiale is a French-language college of applied arts and technology located in Ottawa , Ontario, Canada. To ensure that enough trained skilled trades workers are available to keep our economy moving forward, La Cité collégiale decided to organize an architectural competition for the realization the New Research and Training Centre in Construction Trades as the first phase of the new Campus of Orléans. The centre will allow La Cité collégiale to almost triple its apprenticeship program, to include training in 18 high-demand construction trades. This new building will include workshop, laboratories, studios, and classrooms.

The Trades Centre project proposed by the architects pays special attention to archi- tecture issues, site organization and potential for future development. It ensures consistency of buildings throughout the territory, construction quality, respect of rural identity and recognition of the regional territory icons and landscape memory. The new facility will take advantage of the topography and of the immediate site by deploying in a unique landscape and ecologic set. The proposal aims to define a concept of unique development that perfectly integrates its environment. It reflects a distinctive architecture while clearing the atmosphere suitable for student life. The objectives considered in the architectural approach are:

Composition of a quality project that stands out positively in terms of architecture, urbanism, landscape and environment; Ensure a high visibility from the regional road during the day and night; Ensure a strong dialogue with the natural components of the site and landscape; Enhance the existing streams and revitalize the banks; Provide a comprehensive site plan management that will, over the time, generate a consistent link with the regional landscape memories; Provide a flexible concept that will ensure the sustainability of the project and architectural design.

Context and/or Urban Design Components: The richness of the different agricultural landscape strata and the richness of the topography of the site are the starting points of our conceptual approach. The analysis of the features of the site can see the richness of the dialogue between the topography of the area and the new building and the contrast between the peaceful and contemplative character of the landscape and the dynamic movement at the cars.

Like a vegetal plate that rises above the ground, the concept proposes the development of a sculptural planted roof, a kind of reconstituted topography who engaged a dialogue with the horizontal natural landscape while generating a strong sculptural presence on Route 174. The Trades Centre project is orientated according to the frame of rows. The position of the buil- ding highlights topographical depressions and streams. The parking lots match with the path and are not visible from Highway 174, in order to magnify the project and its development into the natural landscape. The project’s implementation allows further development to the North and the East while maintaining the logical hierarchy of the main entrance first. To highlight the horizontal nature and topography of the project, a land form is proposed along Route 174. The land form, planted with reflectors, will identify the project on Route 174 and mark the specific topography, landscape and ecological aspects of the project.

Integration of Sustainable Design: The landscape project revolves around the existing drainage ditches on the site. Through decades of development in the agricultural sector, streams have remained intact and functional for collec- ting surface water from field to river. This drainage network becomes the generating element of the design. It is the central point around which all the formal language of the site articulates and where all the principles of ecological landscaping emerge. These gaps’ prints, such as an open hand, extend its fingers in every direction, providing texture and atmosphere within the agricul- tural matrix. This matrix is magnified and integrated into pedestrian circulation throughout the campus, defining areas of building settlement, landscaped green spaces and functional spaces. The pedestrian corridors link the future buildings crossing the green areas and stepping over the streams through bridges.

New plantings are organized into two formal languages. The first one is composed of indigenous pioneer plants that are settled in the ditches following the contour lines and interacting with the existing woodlands to create, with years, rich ecological and spatially well defined corridors. The second one is composed of large-scale trees, planted along the agricultural frame and cutting in a formal way the collective spaces, the functional public site, such as parking lots and grassy areas.

Innovation in Addressing Program and/or the Clients' Requirements: The project generates a strong sculptural presence on Highway 174 and sets down the Trades Centre as a benchmark in the community and regional landscape. The proposed building location allows future development to the North and East sides while maintaining the logical hierarchy of the main entrance at the start of the visit. Pending further development, this is where a platform for external outdoor courses and exhibi- tion of student’s projects will be installed. The presence of the belvedere, a headland reached by a wide staircase / agora, offers a view on the river and the landscape of the region, but also on the platform for educational purpose (green roof, mechanical appliance).

The sculptural and aerial character of the concept can generate a multitude of programmatic arrangements that give the project a perfect flexibility in the process of establishing a school through an architectural competition. This will make it possible and easy to adapt the planning of program functions, to project future expansions while retaining the basic concept. The Trades Centre is mainly organized on one level and, programmatically, is divided into two sectors: the construction sector and the education sector . Spatially, the Centre consists of a heart a space of construction, discussion / dissemination and materiality. This core is surrounded to the South by shops, and to the North by administrative and teaching areas.

The East-West section shows the education sector, the main entrances, the spatial fluidity and the great curtain wall facing the site and the Ottawa River. The green roof and the access to the belvedere are also visible on it. The North-South section demonstrates the relationship between the Trades Centre, Route 174 and the topography of the site. This view also explains the visual and acoustic protection that can offer the bank while showing a breathtaking view of the building. The natural sunlight is recom- mended for workshops. The second level enjoys abundant natural light and offers spectacular views of the site and the Ottawa River. Simple glass partitions are placed below the class timber volume and represent the administrative area of the Trades Centre. This sector is composed by the director’s office, his assis- tant (e) and teachers’ offices, a working and resource room, the staff lounge and a multipurpose conference room. The construction details of the building will exhibit and showcase construction techniques so that students can appreciate and understand the different components required in building construction.

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Research vs. teaching - achieving synergies with cases

By  Emma Simmons , September 2011

Business schools and universities are under pressure to demonstrate excellence in both teaching and research. Could the case method be an effective means of doing both?

Quality indicators

Traditionally, publication in peer reviewed journals is considered the ultimate benchmark for academic achievement. Recently, however, providing world-class teaching has been increasingly highlighted. As study fees increase worldwide, students, and their parents, demand ever more ‘value for money’ in the classroom. The leading global ranking systems today benchmark teaching, as well as citations, as a quality indicator.

Many higher education institutions employ both faculty primarily engaged in research, and others with a predominantly teaching brief. The challenge remains as to how to get the best of leading edge research to students in the classroom, and how to make what goes on in the classroom contribute to academic recognition. Jane Houzer, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Business, London South Bank University feels that synergies can be achieved: “Excellent teaching in higher education is, by its nature, research informed, in particular, research should overtly underpin postgraduate teaching,” she observes. Therefore, there is a ‘continuum’ between research and dissemination of knowledge and changing/evolving practise, where the classroom/teaching plays a crucial facilitative role. In the business disciplines, the experience of teaching, for example at postgraduate level, where the students are professionals/practitioners, often inspires academics to undertake certain areas of research as problems and challenges are brought to the table for discussion.

Synergies between research and teaching

So how can this synergy be nurtured? While the case method is traditionally perceived primarily on the ‘teaching’ side of the equation, it may in fact be one of the most effective and dynamic ways to get research into the classroom. Of the more than 42,000 cases in our collection, 43% are based on field research. However, original research underpins the vast majority of the most successful and award-winning cases. No fewer than 76% of The Case Centre's all-time best-selling cases are based on field research, as have been 76% of the overall winners of our annual case awards since their inception.

According to Mark Jenkins, Professor of Business Strategy and Director of Research at Cranfield School of Management, faculty are under more pressure than ever to deliver synergies between their research and teaching: “Research needs to contribute more significantly to what is delivered in the classroom and teaching needs to be more research based.” He believes the teaching case can be a prime way to disseminate research and become an effective communication with a class. With the right support, researchers can write and use cases to develop their teaching expertise, and also fully exploit the flexibility of their data.

At the same time, Mark Jenkins feels teachers can be encouraged to use cases to develop their own research agenda. After writing his award-winning  Formula One Constructors case series  he, himself, realised that there was more depth to be explored in the data he had uncovered for the cases. From that further research, he was able to develop and publish flagship journal publications.

Armand Gilinsky, Professor of Business at Sonoma State University, and current President of NACRA , observes that the field-researched teaching case, by its very nature, straddles the supposed divide of research and teaching: “Writing an excellent teaching case not only enables an author to reach a host of audiences in many lands, but also enables students from diverse backgrounds work together to reach a higher level of understanding.” He emphasises the skill and application involved in producing cases of the highest quality: “To be sure, crafting an excellent teaching case is challenging: a case must be the product of expert field research and superior teaching acumen. A case author shapes a story-line, collects data, and verifies information in order to create a decision focus, and also develops an Instructor's Manual with discussion guidance that is carefully grounded in theory - probably the most challenging aspect of case writing.”

For Michael Netzley, Assistant Professor of Corporate Communication at Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University, the development of both cases and publications emerged as a result of his own unique experience of relocating to Singapore and helping on the project to build a new university. “The most productive first step came from case writing and interviews leading to localised teaching materials. Pedagogical publications submitted to peer reviewed journals have followed, sharing the lessons learned while developing and teaching the materials. Such manuscripts would not have emerged so quickly, or clearly, without the challenge of researching, writing, and testing new case studies in class and receiving feedback. Undoubtedly,” he feels, “the research required to develop both local and current case studies creates opportunities for bettering both teaching and research.” However, the issue of recognition for case writing in institutions which fail to fully grasp this synergy remains a concern. According to Michael Netzley, “Getting senior administration to genuinely value case research, teaching, and then either pedagogical or applied research can be a slow process. We can have the best intentions, create exciting programs, throw money at it and even give awards, but if the senior leadership does not genuinely value such research and fully integrate it into the appraisal and annual review system, then faculty can often be reluctant to pursue this path.”

As the current discussion of how to achieve excellence in both teaching and research becomes more widespread, greater understanding of the synergistic strengths of the case method in this regard are surely set to grow.

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