Approach to Increase Worker Acceptance of Cognitive Assistance Systems in Manual Assembly

Abstract Assembly workers face cognitive challenges due to the ongoing trend towards high-variant and small-series assembly of products with shorter lifecycles. To decrease cognitive load and to raise efficiency as well as quality, many companies start using cognitive assistance systems. However, several implementations lack of worker acceptance, which decreases the benefits of assistance systems. An early involvement of workers in the decision-making process can increase acceptance. This paper presents an approach for a digital assembly workstation consisting of several hardware and software components. With this demonstrator, assembly workers can experience the diversity of human-machine interaction technologies and potentials of cognitive support.