Abstract
There is a growing trend in many industries to expand the diversity of product offerings to meet widespread customer needs. This trend has increased the need for flexibility in manufacturing processes. Advances in flexible automation have far outpaced the research supporting flexibility in the manual operations that are required alongside automation. The objective of this study was to test a real-time computer support system that provided interactive assembly instructions through a graphical user interface combining text and illustration for workers on a flexible assembly line. The interface simplifies the expertise required of an assembly worker by replacing complex blueprints with simple directions and illustrations, thus supporting the rapid introduction of new products and the assembly of a wide variety of parts with minimal off-line training. The results of the study strongly support the use of this type of system. Assembly times were significantly reduced, in most cases by over 50%. Furthermore, assembly errors were virtually eliminated.
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