Concept Design of a Digital Shop Floor Information System for Assembly Operators in Machine Industry

¹ Free University of Bolzano, Faculty of Science and Technology, Industrial Engineering and Automation (IEA), 39100 Bolzano, Italy
² Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 01609 Worcester, MA, USA
³ Fraunhofer Italia Research s.c.a.r.l., Innovation Engineering Center, 39100 Bolzano, Italy

^* Corresponding author: Erwin.Rauch@unibz.it

Abstract

Industry 4.0 and digitization are currently changing shop floor management in production. Especially in the production of highly customized and individual products, digitization offers many opportunities for more efficient processes. Providing the right information in the right time at the right place can help to reduce lead time as well as production costs. This paper shows the use of Axiomatic Design to develop a conceptual design for an innovative and digital shop floor information system for supporting assembly operators in machine industry in their daily work. The research is based on a real industrial case study with a medium sized manufacturer of customized machines. Needs from practice were collected through workshops with the industry partner and were translated into functional requirements. These functional requirements were derived with an Axiomatic Design decomposition to design solutions. The results of the AD analysis were used as a basis for the concept design of an operator information system in the company.