Högskolan i Skövde

Emerging digital and smart technologies, including wearable and collaborative ones, related to the Industry 4.0 paradigm are playing an assisting, collaborative, and augmenting role for the Operator 4.0, and just as in previous industrial revolutions, the nature of work and the workplace for operators on the shop floor is changing. This literature review aims to look into the impact of digital and smart technologies adoption on the workers’ psychosocial stage under the light of the Operator 4.0 typology. Based on the review conducted, a theoretical framework for assessing the psychosocial impacts (risks) of Industry 4.0 technologies adoption in Operator 4.0 is proposed. The framework can be utilized by company managers, researchers, production engineers, and human resources personnel for carrying out a psychosocial risk assessment of Operator 4.0 in assembly, maintenance, and training operations as these operations get digitally transformed and smartified based on self-report questionnaires. Findings reveal that the nature of work, the social and organizational environment of work, and related individual factors are key categories that might affect the Operator 4.0 psychosocial stage on the shop floor.

Cognitive science is becoming increasingly central within humanfactors and ergonomics (HF&E) and there has long been a call for a more systemicperspective in the area with a somewhat broader unit of analysis. This paperpresents a case study applying the theoretical framework of distributed cognition(DCog), which shows how DCog would offer a more complete understanding ofmanufacturing within its greater context, including the social, cultural, andmaterial surroundings. This paper aims to characterize and analyse dock assemblyof forest machines as a complex socio-technical system from a DCog perspective;focusing on the creation of enacted landscapes in this particular setting. The paperalso exemplifies benefits of using the DCog framework in the manufacturingdomain as a way of grasping the assembly workers’ tacit competence and skills.

This paper presents a study examining interruptionsin the wild by portraying the handling of interruptionsin manufacturing from a distributed cognitionlens. By studying how interruptions occur and are handledin the daily activities of a work team at a large foundry forcasting heavy diesel engines, we highlight situations whenthe propagation, transformation, and representation ofinformation are not supported by prescribed work processesand propose recommendations for how this can beamended. The study was conducted by several visits to theaforementioned factory with cognitive ethnography as thebasis for the data collection. The focus was on identifyinginterruptions and analysing these through a distributedcognition framework as an initial step towards studyinginterruptions in a manufacturing environment. The keyfindings include the identification of three, previouslyundefined, types of interruptions and the conclusion thatinterruptions do indeed affect the distributed workload ofthe socio-technical system and thus the overall productionperformance at the casting line.

In order to deepen the understanding of the intrinsic interactions andinterplay between humans, tools, and environment from a systemsperspective, research in the wild (RITW) approaches have gainedtraction during recent decades as they provide a higher ecologicalvalidity of findings. This paper presents a RITW study, investigatinghow assembly, in this case dock assembly of forwarders, was donein practice. As our theoretical foundation, we used the framework ofdistributed cognition, which is one of the main pillars of RITW. Thefindings are presented in narrative form, describing and highlightingthat the workers achieve an efficient production outcome by beingintegral parts of the whole production process and doing so throughcoordination of activities benefitting the shared goal of the distributedsocio-technical system.

It is widely recognized that there is a substantial gap between usability research and practice where UCD approaches are rarelyapplied in practice due to arguments regarding the intricate nature of its methods and techniques. This paper presents an actionresearch study designed to investigate and analyze the potentials for an increased degree of UCD activities in the earlydevelopment phases of advanced information systems technology. The results demonstrate that there is a large interest inusability but that organizational priority and competence is often lacking. Instead one relies heavily on questionable conceptssuch as „trained professionals‟ to excuse the low effort towards usability. Based on the results, six recommendations forimproved usability work in R&D organizations are presented, focusing on the importance of prioritization of, and education inusability work.

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.

This paper concerns the handling of information in assembly work environments. Several studies involving both literature reviews, case studies andobservations were conducted to find factors that affect human performance in manual assembly. The main experiment with 36 subjects used a mixed method design with a quantitative study, including time and errors as dependant measures,a qualitative study, including workload ratings, and a questionnaire. The experiment involved the assembly of a pedal car and the components werepresented using structured kits, unstructured kits and material racks. Assembly information was presented as text & component numbers or photographs, and situations with and without component variation were considered. Among theresults it was found that assembly times and workload ratings were lower when using a kit, whereas using a material rack resulted in perceived decreased workflow and increased stress and frustration. Assembly times and workload ratings were lower when using photographs, whereas using text and numbers increased mental workload.

This paper presents an experimental study aimed at investigating interaction effects affecting personnel in manual assembly. The main experiment with 36 subjects used a mixed method design which included a quantitative study, including time and errors as dependent measures, and a qualitative study, including workload ratings and a questionnaire. The overall task in the experiment was to assemble components on a pedal car. The main factors involved were assembly information (text & component numbers or photographs), material presentation (using structured kits, unstructured kits and material racks) and component variation (situations with and without component variation). It was found that performance, measured in assembly time, was best when combining photographs with no component variants and when using an unstructured kit.

This study investigate different ways of presenting material and information at workstations while using mixed assembly mode with product variants. The experimental set up annotated an assembly line involving 36 subjects. The material presentation factor involved the use of a material rack compared to using an unstructured kit as well as a structured kit. The information presentation factor involved using a text and number instruction compared to a photograph instruction, and situations with and without component variation were considered. Results show that assembly times and workload ratings were lower when using a kit, whereas using a material rack resulted in perceived decreased workflow and increased stress and frustration. Moreover, assembly times and workload ratings were lower when using photographs, whereas using text and numbers increased mental workload. The results could be useful when planning work places and production systems in order to obtain a better workflow and an increased human performance. 

Augmented reality smart glasses (ARSG) have been successfully used as operator support in production. However, their use is not yet widespread, likely in part due to a lack of knowledge about how to integrate ARSG into production. This lack of knowledge can also make it hard to estimate whether this is a worthwhile investment. Our solution is to provide an online evaluation tool to help production planners estimate the likelihood that ARSG will be worth the investment cost in specific production cases. Based on a strawman design, multiple design iterations were followed by a pilot test performed by participants from different manufacturing companies involved in planning production for operators. A Likert scale survey was used to evaluate the tool. The results show a slightly positive evaluation of the tool with suggestions for improvement, including widening the scope and granularity of the tool. Future works include further iterations and case studies.

Operator4.0 was coined in 2016 to create a research arena to understand how the physical, cognitive, and sensorial capabilities of an operator could be enhanced by automation. To create an interaction between operator and robots, there are important factors that needs to be defined. Two important factors are the task and function allocation. Without well-defined tasks it is hard to allocate the tasks between the robot and the human to create resource flexibility. Furthermore, it the tasks are knowledge-based rather than rule-based, the cycle time between operators can differ a lot. Two assumptions are discussed regarding knowledge-based tasks and automation. These are also tested in an experiment. Results show that it is a large variation of the cycle time for both humans (between 1,58 minutes up to 4,40 minutes) and robots (between 1,94 minutes up to 4,49 minutes) when it comes to knowledge-based and machine learning systems.

This paper will discuss how cooperative agent-based systems, deployed with social skills and embodied automation features, can be used to interact with the operators in order to facilitate sharing of tacit knowledge and its later conversion into explicit knowledge. The proposal is to combine social software robots (softbots) with industrial collaborative robots (co-bots) to create a digital apprentice for experienced operators in human- robot collaboration workstations. This is to address the problem within industry that experienced operators have difficulties in explaining how they perform their tasks and later, how to turn this procedural knowledge (knowhow) into instructions to be shared among other operators. By using social softbots and co-bots, as cooperative agents with embodied automation features, we think we can facilitate the ‘externalization’ of procedural knowledge in human-robot interaction(s). This enabled by the capabilities of social cooperative agents with embodied automation features of continuously learning by looking over the shoulder of the operators, and documenting and collaborating with them in a non-intrusive way as they perform their daily tasks. 

Digitalization and automation in industry can have both positive and negative effects on social sustainability. On one hand it can be a basis for monotonous, uncreative, and even dangerous workplaces and in some cases might even result in people losing their work. On the other hand, it can be a base for ergonomically sound and inclusive work, engaging everyone in improvements. This project aims for moving the focus on positive effects for social sustainability while still staying cost efficient and effective in economic and ecologic sustainability for digitalization and automation of work instructions and training in manual operations like assembly, machine operation & setup, maintenance, and material handling. The Industry 4.0 paradigm offers radically increased opportunities for doing just that. For example, increased digitization can create efficiency improvements through shorter lead times and reduced disruptions to production. New generations of technology and software as well as information dissemination can be accelerated and the traceability of products and materials in the industrial systems can be greatly increased. Digitization also provides opportunities to increase industrial resilience to challenges coming from elsewhere, such as demographic change and climate threats. Advanced application of digitization is seen by industries and decision-makers as the most important enabler for achieving the strategic sustainability goals and Agenda2030. A crucial factor for competitiveness is the human contribution. Here too, digitalisation is radically changing the conditions. In the last 20 years, work instructions have been transformed from printed text on paper into an increasingly digital representation. As knowledge increases about how work instructions for the manufacturing industry should be designed, they are rarely designed according to user conditions. At best, this results in a missed opportunity for performance improvements and at worst, it could potentially result in quality deficiencies, efficiency deficiencies and a lower degree of inclusion of staff groups. Digitization and automation permeate both society and industry more and more and there are many different technologies on the market. These can contribute to both increased efficiency and flexibility for the industry. However, there are a lot of challenges to both implement, design, and use instructions. Studies conducted in industry 2014–2018 show that operators and assembly workers only use instructions in 20–25% of cases in the operational phase when they are perceived as inefficient (Fast-Berglund & Stahre, 2013; Mattsson et al., 2018). Of course, this also increases the risks of, for example, assembly errors by not using instructions to the extent that they should be used. The corporate culture and standards are also an important part of how instructions are created and used. Depending on the structure and condition of the company and the production unit, for example, an assembly instruction at one company may include information about the product, process, and work environment, while an assembly instruction at another company includes completely different or only parts of this information. Of course, this is a natural consequence of sometimes far-inherited corporate cultures and traditions, but experience has also shown that it is to a very large extent the nature of work that defines the type of support system needed. In line with increased automation and increasing product variation as a result of increased customisation, operators’ tasks will require more creative work than before where the aim is to enable and handle the results of individual workers' creative thoughts about improvements in their own work situation, increasing cognitive load (Taylor et al., 2020). The development of digitalisation has created new opportunities for improved communication among employees in the manufacturing industry (Oesterreich & Teuteberg, 2016). Therefore, this technological development can and should support operators cognitively (Kaasinen et al., 2020; Mattsson et al., 2016). Although many new digital technologies are being developed and are available (Romero et al., 2016), it is still difficult to implement these so that people's cognitive work is supported. This is often due to the fact that the implementation does not take place in a way that people are comfortable with (Parasuraman & Riley, 1997). In many cases, humans are expected to adapt to technology and not the other way around (Thorvald et al., 2021). To implement better support for their operators, companies should focus on identifying the information needs that exist (Haghi et al., 2018) and then visualize it in a way that is useful to operators. The central aim for the project is to demonstrate how knowledge and systematic development of cognitive support and information design can increase quality and flexibility in future production and how this can be considered in the implementation of digital work instructions. In the industrial case studies, current state-of-practice in information presentation will be investigated and analysed together with state-of-the art knowledge and technology to map successful efforts in industry, identify what it is that makes them successful, or how a particularly challenging situation can be further improved through our knowledge of cognitive work in production.

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.

We detail the results of an ongoing study into the preference of workers in 6 different industrial companies for assembly instruction display types and modalities for their tasks. This study is performed as a part of a project that aims to create a theoretical framework for understanding requirements for instruction presentation in industry, and providing guidance to the creators of assembly instructions. The study, as well as the project as a whole, aims to expand on approaches from the Industry 4.0 framework, with a particular focus on the more recent Operator 4.0 approach that adds a focus on more human-centric aspects of digitalisation in industry. The study being presented is comprised of facility visits to each partner company where the current state of practice was presented by each company, an examination of information presentation and ope- rating procedures by the authors, and in-depth interviews with assembly workers at each site. All companies examined deal with variants in production, and the comple- xity of assembly spans from low to extremely high. The companies involved mostly rely on experienced workers, with high training, and relatively long times to train new personnel. The interviews led to findings such as simplified images being strongly pre- ferred for both beginners and experienced workers, with an emphasis on the image matching the worker’s viewpoint to the product, and experienced workers preferring simplified images with highlighted markings for details that can be seen from where the task is performed, and more. The findings will be used in further work to create a theoretical framework around digital work instructions, as well as used directly to help partner companies better standardise their instructions to support the cognitive abilities and limitations of their assembly workers. The goal with this is to create safe, comfortable and profitable workplaces that fulfil goals of social sustainability in the long term.

The aim of this paper is to highlight some benefits of incorporating usability/user experience (UX) approaches in the software development process of research projects advancing digital human modeling (DHM), and how these processes, approaches, and methods can help keeping the development process more focused and efficient. Research projects that contain large software development components may receive funding only to complete the core tasks, and including additional persons in a project may seem like a waste of resources. This paper introduces user research that relied on a UX approach called contextual inquiry to ascertain user goals and how those might be translated into features for DHM named IMMA that has been developed as a part of numerous research projects in the last decade. The goal of the study is to support DHM development in general through highlighting methods and approaches that can be used, with specific results aimed to support the continued development of IMMA. Results clearly show that existing functions do not support the goals of the user group examined, and highlights the need of understanding user goals and creating functions to support achieving those goals, rather than assuming what functionalities might be needed. By understanding user goals, interpreting those into activities and functionalities time and resources can be used more effectively, which is important for small to medium research projects, where both time and budget may be limited.

The factory of the future aims to make manufacturing more effective and easily customisable, using advanced sensors and communications to support information management. In this paper, we examine how breakpoint selection during interruption management can fail, even when using recommendations for interruption management from existing research. We present an experiment based on prior work where mediated interruptions (i.e. smart interruptions that should interrupt at opportune moments) were missed by participants when sent at one of two pre-defined breakpoints. These breakpoints were selected based on existing research to minimise the cost of interruption, which can involve longer times to complete tasks as well as making errors on tasks. Missing mediated interruptions in this way was unexpected, and the prior study was not configured to measure this effect, which has led to the experiment detailed here. We strive to explore whether there is a risk of missing notifications when mediated interruptions are used, and how this is affected by breakpoint selection. This was investigated through an experiment that uses tasks and environments that simulate a manufacturing assembly facility.

The results indicate that the effect exists, i.e. that participants miss significantly more notifications when interrupted at fine breakpoints than when interrupted at coarse breakpoints. An embodied cognition perspective was used for analysis of the tasks to understand the cause of the effect. This analysis shows that an overlap between “action” and “anticipation of action” can account for why participants miss notifications at fine breakpoints. Based on these findings, recommendations were developed for designing interruption systems that minimise the costs (errors and time) imposed by interruptions during assembly tasks in manufacturing.

Companies in various fields are developing information systems that are supposed to show information in a context sensitive manner. This involves modifying user interfaces based on the current activity and location of the user. The research that exists for context aware, task aware, and location aware systems come mostly from research in the office environment and using stationary work computers using standard mouse and keyboard-operated systems. Other environments, such as manufacturing environments, have not received the same research attention, and therefore research is required to see whether existing theories and frameworks apply to the manufacturing domain. Adding to this, context aware systems are now being created for new classes of devices such as mobile and wearable devices, to be used in multiple domains. All this requires an investigation and validation of older research, and shows how the research of the basic human factors surrounding new devices and domains has fallen behind the development of the devices themselves. This paper examines shortly how recent changes advances in technology affect what is required from the field of interruption research, as well as what is needed to support other domains than the office environment. 

This paper examines how interruptions from information and communications technology systems affect errors and the time to complete tasks for assembly workers. Interruptions have previously been examined in laboratory experiments and office environments, but not much work has been performed in other authentic environments. This paper contains the results of an experiment that was performed in a simulated manufacturing assembly environment, which tested the effects of interruptions on a manual assembly task. The experiment used existing interruption coordination methods as a basis, and the results showed a difference in the effect of interruptions and interruption coordination between cognitively complex laboratory tasks and manual assembly tasks in an authentic environment. Most notably, the negative effects of interruptions delivered without consideration were smaller in this experiment. Based on these findings, recommendations were developed for designing interruption systems for minimizing the costs (errors and time) imposed by interruptions during assembly tasks in manufacturing.

Presented is a literature study into the importance of how information in assembly instructions in manual assembly is presented, more specifically how various factors such as the complexity of the assembly itself, the mental and physical workload of the worker, as well as the experience and skill level of the worker affect the requirements for information presentation. The requirements made by Industry 4.0 on flexibility in production lines and an increased number of variants produced causes increased demands on workers, which leads to more cognitive demands being made on assembly workers. Studies exist around assembly instruction modes, but have in many cases ignored factors such as worker skill level, mental workload, and task complexity and how these affect the requirements for information presentation, which is a major contribution of this study. The findings are that no single solution fits all requirements, but that the aforementioned factors should be taken into account.

In the digital transformation of manufacturing companies towards Industry 4.0, shop-floor operators of the future, Operator 4.0, will require digitalized presentation of information as cognitive support for their work. This paper explores five industrial cases where Information Support Technology have been conceptualized and developed. These cases have exemplified how digitalized presentation of information can be approached with considerations of operators with varying cognitive work situations and production characteristics. Furthermore, these new technical capabilities have increased the level of cognitive automation to support operators’ individual abilities to perform their work in an increasingly more complex production environment. In conclusion, Information Support Technology in the service of Operator 4.0 is intimately linked with digitalization strategies for transformation towards Industry 4.0.

The fields of human factors and ergonomics are systemic by nature, focusing on studying complex interaction between human and technology. However, the levels of explanation have resulted in physical or cognitive ergonomics. Modern understandings of human cognition and technology-mediated interaction, such as embodied cognition, activity theory and user experience (UX) is used as a frame of reference to analyze and illustrate the usage of a digital human modeling (DHM) tool in practice. In so doing, we try to narrow the gap between physical and cognitive ergonomics through embodied tool use. An identified core problem is to understand how a 2D devices should properly interact within 3D objects and manikins in a DMH tool that results in negative UX. The embodied concept of body schema clarifies the cognitive foundation for the negative UX. Some future work is presented, which could be beneficial for DHM, and, in the long run, promote a positive UX at work for various end-users of DHM tools.

The interdisciplinary field of cognitive science has been and isbecoming increasingly central within human factors and ergonomics(HF&E) and, since at the same time, there has long been a call for a more systems perspective in the area with a somewhat wider unit of analysis. This paper argues that the theoretical framework of distributed cognition would greatly benefit the application of HF&E to manufacturing and would offer a more holistic understanding of the interactions between different entities within a greater context,including the social, cultural and materialistic. We aim to characterize and analyse manufacturing as a complex socio-technical system from a distributed cognition perspective; focusing on the use, mediation and integration of different forms of representations, tools and artefacts in this domain. We present illustrative examples fromauthentic manual assembly, showing the cognitively distributed nature of the work, ranging from scaffolding strategies of the individual worker to the emergent properties of a whole assembly line. The paper further proposes and provides benefits of using a distributed cognition framework as a novel approach in the toolboxfor the HF&E discipline, where it may have been found before, but the application to manufacturing has been absent.

The interest in cognitive aspects of human performance has dramatically increased in recent years in manufacturing, complementing the area of physical ergonomics, and the expanded focus on cognitive aspects may offer significant insights and contributions to industrial domains. A considerably increased interest has been directed at the role and effects cognitive load has on human performance, and ultimately on production outcome. The main question addressed is: How can an understanding of cognitive load in manufacturing lead us to design better workplaces for the personnel at the shop floor? To answer this question, we have to consider how technology interacts with work environment and with human cognition from a systems perspective. Technology should be considered a resource in the design of a better working environment, aid those activities for which we are poorly suited cognitively, and enhance those cognitive skills for which we are ideally suited. This has resulted in a potential framework of factors that might have impact on high cognitive load, consisting of three levels; internal factors, external factors, and activity space. The initial framework focuses primarily on the former factors, identifying risks where a high cognitive load might lead to difficulty of work, negatively affecting production outcome.

Due to today’s technological advances in the area of Industry 4.0, having a strategy for cognitive automation solutions is crucial. Operator 4.0, will have handle and manage different work tasks ranging from learning new tasks to solving difficult problems and initiate changes. To support the operator moving between these tasks a strategy for the design of cognitive automation solutions is needed. The suggested strategy has three steps: 1) select assembly phases, 2) choose level of cognitive automation carrier and 3) suggest cognitive automation content. It is important that the operator is part of the design and that the solution supports movement between the phases learning, operational and disruptive phases. The strategy could support manufacturing companies meeting challenges regarding social sustainability e.g. stress, attractive workplaces and demography changes as well as system transparency and complexity.

In order to meet the challenges of future complex systems, manufacturing companies need to better understand how social sustainability affects the operator. One way of studying this is to investigate the possible relationships between operator performance and emotion in an assembly experiment. 60 participants took part in an experiment to investigate the relationships between operator performance and objective and subjective arousal. Results showed a weak relationship between operator performance and objective arousal but no significant relationship was found between performance and subjective arousal. The relationships indicate that further studies on operator emotion could be important to better assembly performance. A tool for doing this might be the Qsensor used in this experiment (measure of objective arousal). More studies are needed to further investigate found relationship and if objective emotion measures can be used to predict performance at assembly workstations.

Extended Reality (XR) is a powerful tool to create new and engaging learning environments. As the technology matures, it opens possibilities for professional training programs where information can be situated in the environment, giving detailed guidance to the user. While this detailed guidance has the potential to help users quickly complete complex tasks, recent research from cognitive psychology indicates that active memory retrieval, often referred to as the testing effect, plays a key role in learning. Specifically, increased support during learning is associated with reduced memory retrieval, with negative effects on long-term retention. While these findings are robust for tasks such as word-pair and image learning, less is known about the impact of the testing effect on motor-skill learning of the type often exercised in XR. In this paper, we present the results of a literature review looking at the state of research on the testing effect related to motor-skill learning and retention. While few articles present findings on the testing effect in motor learning, existing results indicate that the impact of the testing effect on motor learning is similar to non-motor learning; however, more research is necessary in order to draw any strong conclusions.

Just as human operators are important production enablers in the factories of today, they are expected to stay key enablers also in future manufacturing. In today’s factories, operators often meet challenges related to poor information and communication design, which affects their possibilities to perform with higher efficiency levels. Therefore, they need to be provided with better cognitive support tools that are relevant to the challenges to be met. To ensure efficient and effective operator work in the factories of the future, operator support needs to be adequate for the new tasks arising from the evolving operators’ roles and work. Within this paper, the results of current operators’ work and challenges, based on six case studies, are combined with an outlook of the future of work of operators, based on the Operator 4.0 vision. The challenges categorized in this paper can be used to identify opportunities for improvement in the operators’ cognitive support in present factories as well as for researchers and developers of Operator 3.0 support solutions.

Using article numbers as identifiers in industry is a well-established practice. However, previous investigations have indicated, although failed to confirm, shortcomings in this tradition when used in human based assembly. This paper will report findings from an experimental study where subjects were asked to perform a reaction test designed to test the response to different types of syntaxes. These syntaxes where article numbers (control), symbols, and names of famous figures. Results show that subjects were able to significantly faster identify a trigger and respond accordingly when dealing with triggers with semantic content (symbols and names) than with article numbers.

Ever since industrialization, manufacturing companies have competed with each other in trying to make the best and the cheapest product and the automotive industry is definitely no exception. The ‘arms race’ between truck and car manufacturers has pushed manufacturing technology and production practice to where it is today. However, whereas companies have traditionally competed with the engineering excellence and technology of their products, the human effort in production is often neglected. After all, there are still many tasks that require the flexibility and intelligence of a human worker.

This thesis focuses entirely on the information context of assembly workers. It investigates and discusses their general information behaviour in terms of information need, syntax of information, information sources and technology as well as basic cognitive abilities used to utilize information such as attention and memory. The thesis presents relevant literature on the subject of information behaviour and pinpoints potential hazards of information design in manual assembly. It also identifies three hypotheses that suggest improved productivity and quality of work as a result of certain changes in the information landscape. One hypothesis deals with the layout of information, a second deals with the syntax used to identify parts and a third deals with the information medium used to convey information.

Analysis of empirical data gathered shows, among other things, that using unstructured and batched information favours productivity of work; using a syntax with semantic content as opposed to traditional article numbers without any semantic content also improves productivity of work; and using a mobile information unit betters the quality of work.

The purpose of the thesis is to present the beginnings of a road map towards the greater understanding of information presentation in manual assembly. As previous research on this application area has been scarce, it draws upon existing theories found in other sciences, primarily cognitive science and its applications such as Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), information theory and human error.

􀀁

This paper presents an experimental study made on the use of different kinds of information sources in manual assembly. The general idea is that only the necessary information should be presented to the worker and it should be presented where and when the worker needs it as this is believed to both save time and unload cognitive strain. To account for the latter two aspects of this thought, where and when, this paper investigates the use of a handheld unit as an information source in manual assembly. Having a mobile information system, such as a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), that can be carried with you at all times, as opposed to a stationary one, such as a computer terminal, is hypothesized to greatly improve productivity and quality. Experimental results show that the use of a PDA significantly improves quality whereas productivity does not significantly improve.

This paper presents an experimental study made on the use of different kinds of information sources in manual assembly. The general idea is that only the necessary information should be presented to the worker and it should be presented where and when the worker needs it as this is believed to both save time and unload cognitive strain. To account for the latter two aspects of this thought, where and when, this paper investigates the use of a handheld unit as an information source in manual assembly. Having a mobile information system, such as a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), that can be carried with you at all times, as opposed to a stationary one, such as a computer terminal, is hypothesized to greatly improve productivity and quality. Experimental results show that the use of a PDA significantly improves quality whereas productivity does not significantly improve.

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.

In current practice, information is often presented to the operators under the false belief that more information leads to better quality. However, one must consider the cognitive capacity limitations of the human operator and design information systems based on these constraints. Important questions include what medium to use; audio, visual, paper based or computer screen systems? Also the syntax in terms of symbols and text, together with information content and the formatting of the system are important factors that will require much focus to result in a good information system. The paper describes a case where paper-based assembly instructions of a major automotive company have been studied, focusing on information design and cognitive ergonomics in information seeking behaviour. Within the case study, the paper-based information system has been evaluated with two focuses: automatic information behaviour (automatism) and consistency of information presentation in the operator graphical user interface (GUI). It is suggested that systems that do not offer clear and easy-to-find entry points to information will eventually cause quality issues in production.

As we find ourselves in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, the digital transformation of products, processes, and systems, along with their interconnectedness, is of utmost interest. To ensure future competitiveness in the manufacturing sector, the integration of advanced manufacturing technologies and advanced information technology is essential. Information technologies and knowledge are deeply intertwined with industrial equipment, processes, products, and systems, posing a challenge in transitioning today's manufacturing industry into the digital era. The manufacturing sector will require adequate methods, a conducive working environment, new tools, and lifelong training to support its employees.

This article describes a joint effort of five Swedish universities with the ambition to strengthen the competitiveness and innovativeness of the national manufacturing industry through highly competent researchers and future leaders. The collaboration is in the form of an industrial graduate school, combining the efforts of five universities, 16 graduate students, and 12 companies or organisations. This article will outline how the graduate school has been organized, the joint efforts that have been made to assure the development of all parties, organisations and individuals, and will also outline some of the key success factors that have been identified thus far in the project. 

While previous Industrial Revolutions have increasingly seen the human as a cog in the system, each step reducing the cognitive content of work, Industry 4.0 contrarily views the human as a knowledge worker putting increased focus on cognitive skills and specialised craftsmanship. The opportunities that technological advancement provide are in abundance and to be able to fully take advantage of them, understanding how humans interact with increasingly complex technology is crucial. The Operator 4.0, a framework of eight plausible scenarios attempting to highlight what Industry 4.0 entails for the human worker, takes advantage of extended reality technology; having real-time access to large amounts of data and information; being physically enhanced using powered exoskeletons or through collaboration with automation; and finally real-time monitoring of operator status and health as well as the possibility to collaborate socially with other agents in the Industrial Internet of Things, Services, and People. Some of these will impose larger cognitive challenges than others and this paper presents and discusses parts of the Operator 4.0 projections that will have implications on cognitive work.

More and more applications of Augmented Reality (AR) in manufacturing industries are introduced every day and while recent research has shown that one of the more popular applications, high volume assembly instructions, might not offer the best setting for this technology, many other applications exist that do. For assembly, remote guidance or training, rare assemblies, low takt time and high mix production, do still show promise. This article introduces the role of the Augmented Welder, a role utilizing AR technology for the programming of a welding robot. An operator support system in the form of a custom application programmed in Unity and visualized with a pair of Hololens2, connected to an ABB robot through RobotStudio. The robot is equipped with a welding gun dummy. The operator can, through the Hololens2, set safety boundaries, introduce work pieces, place targets in a 3D space, simulate the robot path, send the program to the robot, and activate the physical robot, among other things. We performed a modified pluralistic walkthrough to evaluate the operator support system both with respect to our application but also to search valuable insight to the general use of AR in the use of such applications. Results showed that while the subjects were generally positive towards the support system, several issues were identified and raised by various degrees of severity. The primary issues arose around the navigation and interaction with 2D menus and 3D objects in a 3D Mixed Reality (MR) space. The absence of physics confused the subjects as they could not interact with the virtual objects as they would have with physical objects. The lack of physics simply meant that they didn't act the same. Furthermore the interaction with 2D menus in a 3D space was both reported and observed as being very difficult as the 2D representations probably led to problems with depth perception. The general results of the debriefing indicated that using AR for robot programming was challenging although some of this can be attributed to the fact that this was the participants first use of such a system. The users indicated that the menus were appropriate and that the interaction was intuitive while the navigation within the system was not experienced as natural which confirms the above-mentioned issues with menus disappearing from the line of sight and feedback around generated target points being absent.

To build software which, at the press of a button, can tell you what cognition-related hazards there are within an environment or a task, is probably well into the future if it is possible at all. However, incorporating existing tools such as task analysis tools, interface design guidelines and information about general cognitive limitations in humans, could allow for greater evaluative options for cognitive ergonomics. The paper discusses previous approaches to the subject and suggests adding design and evaluative guiding in digital human modelling that will help a user with little or no knowledge of cognitive science to design and evaluate a human-product interaction scenario.

To build software which, at the press of a button, can tell you what cognition related hazards there are within an environment or a task, is probably well into the future if it is possible at all. However, incorporating existing tools such as task analysis tools, interface design guidelines and information about general cognitive limitations in humans, could allow for greater evaluative options for cognitive ergonomics. The paper will discuss previous approaches on the subject and suggest adding design and evaluative guiding in DHM that will help a user with little to no knowledge of cognitive science, design and evaluate a human-product interaction scenario.

This article investigates the use of a hand-held unit as an information source in manual assembly. Having a mobile information system, such as a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), that can be brought at all times, as opposed to a stationary one, such as a computer terminal, is hypothesised to increase the information range and thus improves assembly performance. The increased information range is argued to be due to assembly workers employing a cost-benefit strategy, where the cost of gathering information is compared with the assumed benefit of it. This article reports empirical data comparing the use of a mobile information carrier with a traditional stationary computer, and results show that the use of a PDA significantly improves quality, whereas productivity does not significantly improve quality. © 2013 Copyright Taylor & Francis.

The Operator 4.0 typology depicts the collaborative operator as one of eight operator working scenarios of operators in Industry 4.0. It signifies collaborative robot applications and the interaction between humans and robots working collaboratively or cooperatively towards a common goal. For this collaboration to run seamlessly and effortlessly, human-robot communication is essential. We briefly discuss what trust, predictability, and intentions are, before investigating the communicative features of both self-driving cars and collaborative robots. We found that although communicative external HMIs could arguably provide some benefits in both domains, an abundance of clues to what an autonomous car or a robot is about to do are easily accessible through the environment or could be created simply by understanding and designing legible motions.

Cognitive science is becoming increasingly central within human factors & ergonomics and, since at the same time, there has long been a call for a more systemic perspective in the area with a somewhat wider unit of analysis, this paper argues that the theoretical framework of distributed cognition would greatly benefit the area. It would offer a more complete understanding of the user within a greater context, be it social, cultural or materialistic. This paper aims to characterize and analyse the domain of manufacturing as a complex socio-technical system from a distributed cognition perspective; focusing on the use, mediation and integration of different forms of representations, tools and artefacts in this domain.  The paper further proposes and exemplifies benefits of using a distributed cognition framework in the manufacturing domain as studied by human factors and ergonomics.

Interest in cognitive or mental workload has over the last couple of years increased drastically from a manufacturing application perspective.  More and more, people are becoming aware of the cognitive limitations that may have great impact on production outcome. The more easily observable area of physical ergonomics has been successfully investigated for a long time and it would seem as though focus has broadened to also include cognitive ergonomics. Considering the effects that a large cognitive load has on human performance, knowledge regarding the role of the cognizing human in a manufacturing environment could potentially have significant effect on production outcome (i.e. quality and productivity). With this in mind, developing and using methods and tools for assessment of the cognitive burden associated with particular tasks or workstations should be and is of substantial interest to the manufacturing industry. Whatever assessment methods exist in the scientific literature today are almost exclusively expert tools where significant expertise in the area of cognitive ergonomics/psychology/science is required. This paper reports parts of the development process and initial version of a non-expert tool for assessment of cognitive load in manual production environments, primarily manual assembly.