Åsa Fast-Berglund

Perceived production complexity – understanding more than parts of a system

To successfully manage today’s complex production systems it is essential to study operators’ perception of the system. The paper presents perceived production complexity assessed at seven manufacturing companies with the CompleXity Index (CXI) method. While other methods have measured product variants, layout, work content, tools and information items, CXI combines them into three areas. These three complexity areas (Station design, Work variance and Disturbance handling) help to create an understanding of the complex system by visualising how they contribute to complexity, and show the need to support the operators’ ability to handle the varying work.

The Operator 4.0: Human Cyber-Physical Systems & Adaptive Automation towards Human-Automation Symbiosis Work Systems

A vision for the Operator 4.0 is presented in this paper in the context of human cyber-physical systems and adaptive automation towards human-automation symbiosis work systems for a socially sustainable manufacturing workforce. Discussions include base concepts and enabling technologies for the development of human-automation symbiosis work systems in Industry 4.0.

Towards a Human-Centred Reference Architecture for Next Generation Balanced Automation Systems: Human-Automation Symbiosis

Human-centricity in manufacturing is becoming an essential enabler to achieve social sustainable manufacturing. In particular, human-centric automation can offer new means to increase competitiveness in the face of new social challenges for the factories of the future. This paper proposes a Human-Centred Reference Architecture that can structure and guide efforts to engineer Next Generation Balanced Automation Systems featuring adaptive automation that take into account various criteria in the operating environment such as time-lapse, performance degradation, age-, disability- and inexperience-related limitations of operators to increase their working capabilities.

Interoperability for Human-Centered Manufacturing

Interoperability is of high focus for the manufacturing industry that is currently undergoing a transformation into the fourth industrial revolution. Factories are adopting smart technologies and implementing decentralized and human-centered manufacturing systems. To use ICT for cognitive automation and information sharing is becoming more common and increasingly important for factory workers. To implement these ICT solutions, it is important to consider their interoperability with the entire manufacturing system. This study suggests a framework that combines the context of human-centered manufacturing with areas of concerns in enterprise systems. The framework is presented and discussed regarding its usefulness to assess and/or improve system interoperability.

Measuring Operator Emotion Objectively at a Complex Final Assembly Station

To meet future challenges of production systems, especially in high-wage countries with high technological complexity in factories, it is important to focus on human operators. The perceived operator view is an important aspect, but takes time. This paper will discuss the physiological measurements used in four commercial and semi-commercial devices in terms of usability in industry, meaning of measurement data and relation to intuition and flow. Results indicate that three physiological measurements can be used in combination to measure well-being to some extent, but that subjective data needs to be incorporated to support the individual perspective (due to that the meaning of data is subjective). By using these devices, physiological data can be measured and evaluated in real-time, which increases the possibility of studying operator emotion (or memory constructs). More studies are needed to evaluate how cognitive processes and measurement data are connected.

Digitalizing Occupational Health, Safety and Productivity for the Operator 4.0

Industry 4.0 technologies, such as enterprise wearables, can foster better industrial hygiene to keep operators healthy, safe, and motivated within emerging cyber-physical production systems. This paper provides an optimistic perspective on opportunities evolving from wearable devices in an Industry 4.0 workplace environment to support occupational health, safety and productivity for the Operator 4.0. Examples of technical solutions, and their associated application scenarios, are presented showcasing how enterprise wearables may foster detection of situations that involve potential occupational risks before they actually occur at smart shopfloors.

Finding Trends in Human-Automation Interaction Research in Order to Formulate a Cognitive Automation Strategy for Final Assembly

This article presents a literature review within the area of Human-Automation-Interaction in order to find trends and central factors in recent HAI research. These factors will then be used in order to suggest a cognitive automation strategy for final assembly. Trends within final assembly is towards take individual aspects into account, choose an appropriate level of automation and investigate trust and joint-interaction factors. In addition, automation system processes should be made more transparent in order to keep the operator in the decision-loop.