Interactive Learning of Assembly Processes using Digital Assistance

Due to an increasing demand for individualized products and the resulting high variability in manufacturing processes, flexibility and cognitive skills of human workers are highly important for manual assembly processes. Nowadays, novice workers are often trained by colleagues or foremen in addition to and alongside their main work. Since time is usually scarce and the procedure can be highly variable, one solution for the companies can be the introduction of digital assistance systems. Hence, the focus of this contribution is the initial learning procedure of the assembly of a new and complex product. Therefore, a user study was conducted in close cooperation with an industrial partner to compare the traditional way of training to the self-paced learning with a digital assistance system. During the execution of the user study, objective data was recorded to allow precise measurements of the individual learning progress. Furthermore, the subjective learning experience was assessed using a customized questionnaire and a standardized task load metric. The evaluation of the study results suggests that learning autonomously with a digital assistance system leads to similar performance curves as learning the process through a personal explanation.