Collaborative robots and new product introduction: Capturing and transferring human expert knowledge to the operators

Collaborative robots, thanks to their light structure and embedded safety mechanisms, have started to be employed in assembly lines to perform tasks previously carried out by human operators. The implications of the close and sometimes tight collaboration between the worker and the machine have been investigated from several perspectives: quality, productivity, health & safety and social implications. However, other implications, which are acquiring increasing relevance, are related to product changeovers and the need to frequently adapt the collaborative robots’ behaviour to follow the new work instructions. As current market trends lead to increasingly frequent releases of new models or variants, the capability to adapt robot’s instructions effectively and efficiently have to be at hand in the line and cannot longer be limited to the engineering and technical departments. Theory and practice about changing robots’ programs have to be transferred from the experts to the operators. In this study, we propose a method for capturing and analyzing expert’s knowledge, based on human observation, video and speech recording. Results include patterns of human expert’s behaviour and suggestions for training and support employees to cope with collaborative robots and new product introduction.