Cognitive Automation In Material Handling Systems For Improving Manufacturing Flexibility

With growing global competition and increasing customized demand in today’market, manufacturing flexibility (MF), as a key capability to deal with interior andexterior uncertainty, has been raised to competitive strategic place in differentmanufacturing industries. As one of the basic parts running through the product process,material handling system (MHS) has tremendously increased the system efficiency withautomatic implementation. Since the computer numerical control technique is widelyutilized in the automatic MHS, the human operator not only plays role of the materialhandling task-performing agent, but a vital role to perform a series of cognitive tasks,such as supervision, control and decision-making, etc. So the narrowed concept ofmechanical automation fails to reflect the problems in an all-around way. How to measureand analyze thelevels of automation (LoA)in MHS, how they especially the cognitiveLoA impact the MF, what information to present and how to present the information forbetter supporting the operator in MHSand then improving manufacturing flexibility. Allthese questions require careful study.The study focuses on the MHS in the production line. Based on characteristics ofMHS,we attempt to establish the methodologyframework of measuring andanalyzingLoA for MHS. Based on this methodology, we implement the measurement andanalysis of LoA for an actual production line. Through simulation verification, we studythe levels of automation in the MHS, especially cognitiveLoA’seffect on the MF, and thenwe optimize it based on this. In the end, some guidelinesfor improving the informationfloware discussed from perspective of cognition.The results show that the MF has been refined by the improvement of LoA in MHS.However, different tasks or processes of the MHS differ in improving. The improvementof cognitive automation and information flow has refined MF tremendously. In terms ofthe information content, presenting graphic information,and providing information basedon specific tasks can apparently decrease the information processing obstacles for theoperator. While for information display method, regarding the problems facing by theMHS, which are “prompt fault management can avoid parts damage and outage resultingfrom handling tasks failure”, and mobilityof the material handling operator, the displaymethod shouldbe not limited to visual display but extend to others (e.g. audio, tactual or those combined).This will help operators in the MHS to quickly respond to theenvironmentchanges. The research process and results also reveal that the proposedmethodology framework for the measurement and analysis of LoA in MHS is effective.