Towards human-centered development of explainable AI in a German SME

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing and maintenance industry increasingly adopt AI systems in a variety of applications. Therefore, the design and implementation of software environments in SMEs must meet specific requirements, such as human-centered design (HCD) and explainability of AI (XAI). Yet, applied research that utilizes HCD for XAI is sparse. We aim to implement an AI system assigning employees to specific tasks in a maintenance SME. Our work-in-progress report examines an approach for an agile human-centered implementation of an XAI system, including challenges and benefits. We expect to improve the data quality and AI predictions on the one hand. On the other hand, we aim to improve the acceptance of the use of AI and the organizational work process. With further investigations, we deepen the discussion on feasibility of human-centered development of XAI in this context.