A human factors-aware assistance system in manufacturing based on gamification and hardware modularisation

Abstract

Assistance systems have been widely adopted in the manufacturing sector to facilitate various processes and tasks in production environments. However, existing systems are mostly equipped with rigid functional logic and do not provide individual user experiences or adapt to their capabilities. This work integrates human factors in assistance systems by adjusting the hardware and instruction presented to the workers’ cognitive and physical demands. A modular system architecture is designed accordingly, which allows a flexible component exchange according to the user and the work task. Gamification, the use of game elements in non-gaming contexts, has been further adopted in this work to provide level-based instructions and personalised feedback. The developed framework is validated by applying it to a manual workstation for industrial assembly routines.

KEYWORDS:

• Human factors
• assistance system
• gamification
• adaptive systems
• manufacturing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data available on request from the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jessica Ulmer

Jessica Ulmer received her M.Sc. in Mechatronics from FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences in 2018. She is currently working towards her joint Ph.D. at FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences in Germany and RMIT University in Australia. In her research, she focuses on gamification approaches to adapt working environments to the user's needs.

Sebastian Braun

Sebastian Braun received his M.Sc. in theoretical chemistry in 2010 from Ruhr University Bochum and worked as a DevOps engineer for several years. He is currently pursuing a joint Ph.D. at FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences in Germany and RMIT University in Australia. His research investigates multi-agent systems for manufacturing and operations management.

Chi-Tsun Cheng

Chi-Tsun Cheng received the B.Eng. degree in electronic and communications engineering and M.Sc. degree in electrical and electronic engineering from The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, in 2004 and 2005, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electronic and information engineering from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, in 2009. From 2010 to 2011, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Calgary, Canada. From 2012 to 2018, he was a Research Assistant Professor at the Department of Electronic and Information Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He joined RMIT University, Australia in 2018 and he is now an Associate Professor in the Manufacturing, Materials and Mechatronics discipline under the School of Engineering, STEM College. His research interests include wireless sensor networks, the Internet of Things, industry 4.0 technologies, cloud computing, and additive manufacturing.

Steve Dowey

Steve Dowey received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Hull in 1999 and has been working as a technology manager at Sutton Tools Pty Ltd since 2010. Additionally, he is a senior lecture and industry fellow at RMIT University Australia. His research interests are in Industry 4.0, Design for Assembly and Automation, and Design for Manufacture.

Jörg Wollert

Jörg Wollert received his Ph.D. degree at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of RWTH Aachen University in 1994. He is currently a professor for automation technology and embedded systems and the director of the Institute for applied Automation and Mechatronics at FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences in Germany. His research focuses on the impact of Industry 4.0 in production environments, the Internet of Things, and industrial communication.