Högskolan i Skövde

It can be argued that it is common that industrial workstations are “built” rather than purposefully designed with user and task requirements in mind. Afterwards, built-in problems typically need to be corrected, causing undesired costs and efforts. With the objective to assist workstation designers in avoiding most problems already in the design phase, a design support tool is being developed. The paper argues the need for such a tool and presents the fundamental tool functionality. Expected advantages are more efficient and ergonomic workstations and a more efficient design process with built-in learning and documentation.

Increased production complexity challenges traditional methods for planning and preparation of assembly. This paper addresses alternative approaches for assembly line balancing and an assembly plant area was studied in a cross-disciplinary scenario-based analysis. Results show that the complexity in products, operations, flow, and organisation increases setting new demands on developing line balancing methods, including meeting the requirements and understanding the impact, e.g. competences, organization, support functions. Further research is suggested for increase knowledge of what impact different line balancing concepts has on performance, human work and working conditions as well as development of strategies and guiding principles for dynamic planning.

Lean analyses and following corrections of workstations are typically performed reactively, i.e. solving problems that already exist. However, there are benefits of enhanced proactivity related to the consideration of lean and human factors, as this would reduce the need for updating workstations. The approach presented here utilises a company specific, reactive lean evaluation methodology, but applied proactively, in the workstation design phase. Results gave that many assessment items in fact can be proactively addressed. This way, ergonomic and lean workstations that support quality, performance and wellbeing for a diversity of workers, can be built right the first time.

In manual assembly, a strategy to meet the goal of efficient production is the increased use of kitting as a material supply principle. Even though kitting is already implemented in industry, there are still uncertainties regarding the effects of introducing kits, particularly from a human factors perspective.

This paper presents initial steps in the development of a method to be used for the evaluation of kitting. This from an information source point of view and for studying effects related to productivity and quality. The methodology is projected to act as a foundation for how to carry out a subsequent comprehensive case study. The purpose of the case study is to explore how kitting affects the cognitive workload compared to the ordinary material rack combined with part numbers used in the current manufacturing industry. This is done by measuring productivity; time spent on assembling a product, and quality; number of assembly errors. One step in the methodology development process, which is described in this paper, was to conduct a pilot study, primarily to test the methodology related to the selection of measurement parameters, as well as for getting experiences from running the methodology with real test subjects.

Minimalism of design is a concept often found in Human-computer interaction (HCI). It is a concept that emphasizes the presentation of as little information as possible to reduce the perceptual strain and visual search of the subject. However, in a manufacturing context, such as in manual assembly, state of the art information presentation is rarely minimalistic. Rather, organizations tend to push out as much information as possible without necessarily concerning themselves with how this information is presented to, or perceived by, the worker. This leads to a situation that is far from ideal from an HCI perspective, likely to reduce human performance and wellbeing, in turn negatively affecting overall production system performance. Obviously, there are several potential ways of addressing this issue. Perhaps the most evident way is to simply reduce the amount of information that is presented and only present the essentials. This paper will investigate and discuss how information presentation can be minimized without reducing the information content through information syntax and layout.