Human-centred assembly and disassembly systems: a survey on technologies, ergonomic, productivity and optimisation

Despite the increasing use of automation in the current industry 4.0 context, manual assembly and disassembly tasks are still common and in some situations even unavoidable. The interaction between humans and other elements of the Assembly and Disassembly Systems (ADS) has been discussed in the scientific literature with the dual objective of optimising human well-being and system performance. Human Factor (HF) related studies focused on new technologies such as motion tracking systems. These technologies enable the collection of data to improve understanding the work environment and its impact on employee well-being and productivity. In the literature, different metrics were suggested to measure the ergonomic and productivity scores. These measurements influence the global system performance and may allow its optimisation. In this paper, we provide a review of the literature on human-centred ADS. We mainly focus on technologies (used to capture human motion), metrics (used to assess human ergonomic risks and productivity), and operational research models (used to optimise the performance system considering economic and cycle time objectives). Future directions are discussed in the perspectives of this paper. Copyright (C) 2022 The Authors.

Automated summary

Despite the increasing use of automation, manual assembly and disassembly tasks are still common and have been discussed in the scientific literature for optimizing human well-being and system performance. New technologies such as motion tracking systems enable the collection of data to understand the impact of the work environment on employee well-being and productivity. Different metrics have been suggested to measure ergonomic and productivity scores, influencing system performance and optimization.