Human-centred Adaptation and Task Distribution utilizing Levels of Automation

Abstract

Considered as one of the key enablers of smart factories, human-machine adaptation and improved task distribution plays an important role for the realization of effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction of factory staff. In this paper, with a view to the researches and practices related to the common results of automation adaptation, existing approaches have been revealed as being too general to be put into practice, or being focused too detailed on one industry and therefore cannot be imposed in others. With this in mind, an applicable concept is developed for the setup of an adaptation system, which stems from the EU funded Factory2Fit research project. Within the proposed concept, production automation levels are captured and defined to adapt to the skills and experience of the user. An adaptation engine with human-centered automation is further designed. Based on this, a demonstrator with the scenario of an automobile supplier company is established, which helps to validate the approach proposed within the paper.