Exoskeleton-centered process optimization in advanced factory environments

The European manufacturing sectors have to face the challenge of workplace safety and security representing costs up to 4% of GNP. A user-friendly and cooperative human-robotic exoskeleton for manual handling work can represent a possible innovative solution. For highlighting and revealing the benefits of human-robotic exoskeleton, represented by increased employment and productivity and reduced back injuries, the validation of this concept in digital and virtual environment has been performed, in two relevant industry sectors, car disassembly and automotive suppliers. The digital models of the test cases and the simulation of ergonomic workplaces were realized by using state-of-the-art Digital Manufacturing technologies and systems. This simulation technology allowed the realization of two states of factory environment, the as-is state without an exoskeleton and the to-be state after employing the use of an exoskeleton. The challenges of coupling the exoskeleton to the human operators in Digital Manufacturing Systems, the first results and the next steps, are presented as well. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).