MyLYL: Towards Flexible Interaction Design for Operator Assistance Systems

Abstract

Assistive systems in industrial assembly, such as cranes, hoists, and robotic arms are installed to reduce the ergonomic stress operators are exposed to. Whether such a system is suitable for a certain assembly step is currently evaluated based on ergonomic criteria. This does not seem sufficient as operators often choose not to use the assistive system. It is therefore important to ask why this is the case and what can be done to minimize the chances that support tools are not used.

To address the why-question, we ran contextual inquiries at three large production companies and used the results to design a simple scoring sheet to evaluate and compare the usability aspects of assistive systems in industrial assembly. This scoring sheet represents a design space: it provides an overview of different attention points relevant to the operators. As a first evaluation, we retroactively compared the (then) current to the desired situations in the visited companies. Further research is necessary to evaluate the design space and its representation.