Sandra Mattsson

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.

Could the use of ICT tools be the way to increase competitiveness in Swedish industry

When operators gain increasingly critical roles for the performance of industries, the operator competitiveness becomes more significant to maintain the sustainable competitive advantages of their company. The research project ‘Operator of the Future’ aims to increase the competitiveness of future Swedish operators, by providing them with advanced decision support tools. Multiple factors must be considered when specifying operator needs and designing support tools. This paper focuses on operator maturity for use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools, professionally and domestically. Further, important aspects of social sustainability are discussed relative to the implementation of ICT tools. Results are presented as analysed empirical data, collected in three global Swedish production companies.

Comparing quantifiable methods to measure complexity in assembly

In order to measure complexity and stay competitive, manufacturing companies need to be able to quantify production complexity. For this reason, two methods were developed within the context of two concurrent research projects are compared: the Belgian Complexity Calculator, CXC, measures objective complexity and the Swedish Complexity Index, CXI, focuses on subjective complexity, as experienced by operators in the stations. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the two methods by comparing them to seven relevant existing quantitative methods and by examining results from case studies. It is observed that the two methods can be used as a compliment to one another, where CXC can be used for scanning data automatically CXI can be used for in-depth analysis. In addition, the comparison of existing methods provides insight on how to measure complexity depending on need and scope.

Validation of the complexity index method at three manufacturing companies

In order to manage increasing numbers of product variants, tools that can reduce or manage production complexity are vital. The paper describes CompleXity Index (CXI), an index-based method and tool that assess the complexity at an industrial workstation. CXI was validated at three Swedish manufacturing companies investigating how different roles affect the index calculation and if the method measures what was intended. In all three cases, CXI was seen as a useful tool that provided a holistic view of the problems seen at a station. In addition it was indicated that complexity and unbalanced work was connected and that the method could be used to predict problem areas on new stations.

Development of production cells with regard to physical and cognitive automation: A decade of evolution

This paper will discuss a companys view and evolution of physical and cognitive automation regarding four product families that have been put in production the past decade. The focus of this paper is on the mindset of the production engineers when changing the assembly cells of the products. Results, from observations and interviews, reveal that both the physical and cognitive automation have been considered when designing new assembly cells at the company. Automation has decreased during time covered by the studies. Further, an evolution in lean production and increased involvement of the operators have been in focus during the last two product cell designs, in order to reach recourse and volume flexibility. Moreover, in order to decrease the product complexity, the engineers always design one cell per product family.

Using Usability to Measure Interaction in Final Assembly

Although interaction has been investigated from a number of different areas no consensus has been made regarding what variables that should be measured. Therefore it is hard to predict system performance, where especially in final assembly, a well functioning interaction between humans and automation is crucial in order to maintain production quality. This also makes it hard to suggest improvements. By combining concepts of usability, an approach was suggested were measurable variables were structured. The approach was tested in an experiment and it was suggested that the approach could be used to measure effectiveness, efficiency and operator satisfaction.

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.