Christoph Berger

Determination of Cognitive Assistance Functions for Manual Assembly Systems

Since a growing number of variants increase complexity in today’s production systems, higher flexibility is needed. However, automated production systems are often not economical in high-variant production scenarios. Therefore, human flexibility plays an important role, especially for assembly tasks. In order to increase human flexibility in manual assembly a variety of assistance systems providing cognitive support for individual workers has been developed in recent years. Cognitive assistance systems can support assembly workers by providing, processing or collecting information. This paper presents an approach to determine cognitive assistance functions in manual assembly. The need for different assistance functions is investigated in order to make a needs-based selection. The results can then be matched with suitable technologies to design an assistance system. An application of this approach is shown for a manual assembly system in the learning factory for cyber-physical production systems in Augsburg, Germany.

Digitization of Manufacturing Companies: Employee Acceptance Towards Mobile and Wearable Devices

In the production environment, digital assistance systems become more important as an interface between human and machines. Considering implementation processes of new technologies, like mobile and wearable devices, employee acceptance is crucial. The research objective is to describe the current level of acceptance of production staff and to reveal the influencing factors for technology acceptance towards mobile and wearable devices in manufacturing environment. The impact of the degree of familiarity with the medium is of particular interest, because of the first-time implementation of devices that are already conversant from private surroundings, such as smartphones. The research method features an explorative, qualitative interview approach to examine complex attitude and decision-making processes in a theory-generating way. The qualitative content analysis implies differences between familiar and fairly unknown devices. Further results reveal several influencing factors such as robustness, wearing comfort, customizability, support of management or data protection that should be considered in implementation strategies.

Application of CPS in Machine Tools

The growing importance of Internet of Things gives rise to various possibilities for the manufacturing industry. Benefiting from the numerous potentials that cyber-physical systems (CPS) offer, the relevance for manufacturing companies generally lies in the idea of becoming smart instead of fast. In line with this idea, two different use cases related to the development and integration of CPS in the machine tools. The first example involves a milling tool with integrated sensing capabilities for the purpose of measuring the forces during the process. The second use case focuses on a smart clamping device from a turning machine. An intelligent chuck is developed by using an electronic clamping system. This CPS controls and regulates its clamping force on the basis of sensor values that are measured directly on the clamped product. Finally, the approach is generalized and potentials for integration into current processes used in the machine industry are discussed.

OpenServ4P: Offene, intelligente Services für die Produktion

Kurzfassung Die Komplexität heutiger industrieller Produktionsprozesse zieht viele unbekannte gegenseitige Abhängigkeiten und Wechselwirkungen zwischen den Komponenten nach sich. Die Beherrschung dieser Komplexität obliegt oftmals einzelnen Experten. Demgegenüber führt der Einsatz von Sensorik insgesamt zu einem hohen Aufkommen von Daten. Hieraus ergibt sich ein hohes, bislang ungenutztes Potenzial. Das Forschungsprojekt OpenServ4P entwickelt hierzu eine internetbasierte Plattform, von der aus verschiedene Werkzeuge „as a service“ abgerufen werden können.