Smart factory concept extended with Pick 2 Light system

Finding the right balance between the employee’s well-being and his ‘output’. That is the goal of the collaboration between Tegema and Mentech with the demonstration of the smart factory concept based on stress detection. Indeed, there is an ideal value of stress for performing a ‘high complexity’, ‘low volume’ assembly.

In March, the P2L (Pick 2 Light) system, a machine from Tegema, for assembling products was introduced, see attached photo. With this system a product is assembled according to a prescribed instruction. The process steps are indicated by means of a LED indicator with which the operator assembles the product step by step without errors. At a later stage, a cobot (collaboration robot) will be added to the assembly process to perform more complex production steps together with the operator.

During the assembly process the operator is monitored by the HUME. Assembling a complex product can be very stressful, for example due to time pressure or a complex task. With the HUME we can measure this tension and stress and through interventions (an extra rest break or a change in the assembly process) we can regulate the operator’s stress. This intervention and its result are visible in a dashboard.

The first results with the P2L system are promising. By using external factors we can generate stress in the operator, the HUME can recognize this stress very well. The next step is to use this stress in a machine or human intervention by means of a decision algorithm.