Peter Gust

Developing of a System for Measuring and Evaluating the Hand Stress in Relation to the Strain Index

To assessment the hand stress of production employees, ergonomists often use the methodology for determination the job strain index. The determination of the job strain index is based on the estimation of six strain variables. An incorrect estimation of strain variables can impair the health of production employee or the company needs to improve the production process. To avoid such inaccurate estimates, is the aim of this work, a developing of a system to measure the six strain variables and to evaluate the stress of the hand objectively. The work starts with a research of sensor gloves that have already been applied for the hand. Subsequently a first system is being developed systematically and demonstrated on a process example. This enables the measurement of all strain variables. The results show that the evaluation of the process and product ergonomics is faster and more accurately.

Field Study on the Application of a Simulation-Based Software Tool for the Strain-Based Staffing in Industrial Manufacturing

In the context of demographic changes in industrial nations and the common global megatrend Internet of Things or Industry 4.0, enterprises have to tackle technological, social and economic challenges. To maintain their market position, enterprises have to change their manufacturing processes, amongst others. After a short introduction, the following article presents the objective and proceeding of a field study on the simulation-based software tool WorkDesigner for the strain-based staffing in a medium-sized enterprise of industrial manufacturing. Afterwards, the data acquisition and modelling as well as the analysis of the simulation results is explained. Concluding, the presented results and future developments are discussed.

Intelligent Seating System with Haptic Feedback for Active Health Support

Due to infrequent change in posture, static sitting leads to muscular tension and even possible degeneration of the intervertebral discs and is therefore one of the main causes of serious physical complaints of the back. This sitting behavior can be observed particularly at seated workplaces such as office work or vehicle guidance in transport or long-distance traffic. Previous ergonomic seating systems have manually or actuator-operated adjustment mechanisms and in some cases a movable seat mechanism. Postural support is adjusted once and remains unchanged in different sitting positions. This leads to a lack of – or incorrect support of – body posture and thus to rapid fatigue of the muscles and intervertebral discs. A new approach for ergonomic seating systems is the introduction of haptic feedback through automatic and prospective actuator deformation within the seat surface dependent on the user’s individual sitting position and behavior. Haptic feedback is provided by a composite of a sensor that determines the distribution of compressive force and an actuator based on a shape memory alloy. If several units are used in different zones of the seating furniture, the sitting position can be determined and evaluated in real time and the seat can react intelligently. If the user exceeds the permissible retention time within a position, change of sitting position is stimulated by a load-based actuation of the actuators. The discomfort, barely perceptible to the user, leads to dynamic sitting and thus actively helps to reduce muscular tension and maintain performance over a longer period of time. This paper is a draft modular technology concept for the promotion of dynamic body posture in any seating system.

Method to Handle Haptics Optimization of Products Based on Simulation Models

The perceived quality of a product is—in case of a large number of product alternatives—a key purchasing criterion. The designers challenge is to create (often very complex) products that can be perceived by the customer as high quality. The objective of the work is the creation of a method, which allows the designer to detect influencing factors and enables them to analyze the haptical characteristics of a product, already in the early design stage. Based on the CAD model, this method allows it to create the haptics of a product by defined design targets, or to perform improvements on existing products. The result of this optimization is a design model with a defined parameter setup, containing the desired haptical characteristics and ready to be used for the further embodiment-process.

IMPACTS ON SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT AND ITS FLEXIBILITY THROUGH COMPONENT COMMONALITY AND POSTPONEMENT

The current trend to shortening product lifecycles and the uncertainty in the dynamics of global markets force companies to increase flexibility in supply chain management. In spite of the importance of the interdependencies between product design and supply chains, the contribution of product design principles to supply chain management flexibility has not been, so far, sufficiently investigated in the scientific literature. This research will show the positive benefits of combining postponement and component commonality in the automotive industry. Insights from literature and a case study are combined to evaluated the impacts on the supply chain variables coordination, collaboration and configuration and its flexibility. The notion of this work is to convince companies in making combined component commonality and postponement decisions rather than separate ones.

Determining the Stability of Collaborative R&D Networks

To reduce the likelihood that R&D projects fail, companies tend to perform collaborative R&D activities in networks. A fundamental characteristic of networks is stability. This paper introduces a novel approach that theoretically determines the stability of R&D networks and combines the analysis of network topology with a two-layer simulation model.Graph theory and measures from social network analysis are used to analyze the topology of collaborative R&D project networks. Our study enables us to identify the companies that play a key role in R&D networks. To ensure the right outcome of the collaborative R&D project, participants with a high betweenness centrality index should be monitored. These participants influence the stability of collaborative networks on a large scale. With these insights, an improved risk management approach can be set up.Copyright