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Cognitive assistance systems help people with learning disabilities to increase their skills and consequently their employment opportunities in the regular labour market. Research on advanced work instructions has encouraged training disabled workers in cognitively demanding production tasks, especially manual assembly. However, studies lack evidence on the effect of repetition or work cycle alongside the form of instruction and type of disability. This paper addresses this gap and reports on an experiment conducted at a sheltered workplace. Four forms of instruction (paper-based, animations, projection, adaptive projection) were tested to assist operators with three types of disability (illiterate, psychosocial, cognitive) with a manual assembly task. The results show that projection enhances the first assembly cycle. Challenging operators by filtering the content of the instruction with increased experience leads to greater independence and a better understanding of their tasks. However, adaptive instructions can form a barrier for those operators who are most dependent on mentor support. The form of instruction should thus be considered carefully for each operator as their adaptation to changes and cognitive assistance systems varies. The results are discussed in light of the Industry 5.0 human-centric and socially sustainable production agenda with managerial and research implications and future research priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As assembly systems move into the era of mass customisation, the complexity of design processes, (re)configurations and operations rises. Well-structured data are key in keeping this complexity manageable. Here to, this paper presents a multidimensional formal skill model designed to deliver generic descriptions of needs and capacities with skills as the connector between products, processes and resources. The model formalises resource structures in relation to the processes they master and products they can produce. This paper discusses the case-based evaluation in a reconfigurable assembly system and highlights the added-value of a skill-based modelling approach. The presented formal model combines concepts coming from both offline and online modelling perspectives and allows for various applications and levels of detail. The resource structures embedded in the prerequisites of a skill enable matchmaking of resources for workspace design and reconfigurations. The mapping of the model to standardised ISA-95 models couples production needs to the resources allowing for more optimal production planning, control and a structured interface between enterprise and control systems. The possibility to couple states to the assembly environment allows for optimal runtime orchestration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The manufacturing industry is entering the fourth industrial revolution, which aims to shift the manufacturing paradigm to data-driven smart manufacturing. Many barriers still limit the adoption of this new revolution, although enabling technologies such as a digital twin (DT) have the potential to overcome them. Since the appearance of the digital twin technology, this has led to a significant increase in academic publications and industrial applications. However, significant challenges facing the implementation of this technology stem from the emergent field stage, a need for more comprehensive information, and a need for clarity and consistency in definitions and concepts. This review identifies and categorizes the potential digital twin challenges and provides a novel conceptual framework that structures them and links them to the principal digital twin components, along with an example that elucidates the proposed framework's utilization. The emerging relationships unveil interesting insights into the current status and future research requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To achieve interoperability between different 3D virtual commissioning software, a generic virtual commissioning data model is required. AutomationML is a standard neutral format for interoperability in the engineering phase. However, the current AutomationML standard is not sufficient for full-scope 3D-based virtual commissioning data exchange, as attributes and modeling method of 3D virtual commissioning-related sensors, actuators and signal connections are not standardized in AutomationML. To fill this gap, the authors suggest extending AutomationML for interoperability in 3D virtual commissioning. In this paper, a case-driven iterative approach is introduced to evolve towards an AutomationML extension. This extension is gradually developed by taking the union of all virtual commissioning-related functions and attributes of 3D virtual commissioning software. During the iteration, naming rules are applied when a new attribute is added to the extension. With this approach, an initial AutomationML extension is created by implementing a first iteration. The interoperability performance of this extension is subsequently evaluated by conducting data exchange of a representative set of 3D emulation models between two 3D virtual commissioning software, namely Siemens NX and Visual Components, via self-developed 'Import' and 'Export' plug-ins. It shows that AutomationML extension-based data exchange converts 70% more attributes than that only based on AutomationML. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, the verification of the control logic of automation projects is mainly a manual task during real commissioning phase on the physical installation. This involves a lot of risks towards possible damage and unanticipated delays in project completion. Virtual commissioning allows the verification to start earlier in the project timeline but is often also a manual task and requires a lot of human knowledge and expertise. This paper proposes a workflow to provide additional support to the automation engineer based on a 3D Digital Model that interacts with the real control logic. The digital model records all occurring states and transitions in the background and visualizes the state graph to highlight unexpected behaviour and to support troubleshooting. The proposed approach is validated on a test case confirming (1) the effectiveness of highlighting unexpected behaviour during programming phase and (2) the substantial reduction in real commissioning time. The added value of the approach is concluded, although a number of limitations still exist. Future research includes the validation of the approach on real industrial cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the low volume high variety strategies of manufacturing companies, manual assembly operators have a much larger cognitive load than before. The expertise of the operators must be kept up to date at any time. Since the high investment and low flexibility of a real setting to perform a manual assembly training, a virtual replica is introduced in many cases. The aim of this paper is to study the effect of an elementary virtual training for manual assembly tasks. In literature, different studies on the topic can be found; nevertheless, a comparison between the different studies is not possible due to diverse evaluation methods and descriptions. A benchmark for a uniform evaluation of virtual training systems is presented and applied to this experiment. Two groups were submitted to a number of manual assembly tasks. The test group got a virtual training period in advance.Asignificant learning transfer during that training period was observed. When the first assembly of the reference group is counted as a real training, no significant difference can be found between the virtual and real training. The outcomes of this experiment will be used in future work to compare different virtual training systems and influential factors such as the assembly complexity. Furthermore, the application of virtual training to manual assembly in a mixed-model environment and its industrial usability are topics that still need to be studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]