Development of a CAD-based automated worker guidance system

Worker guidance systems are a central element in the ongoing digitalization of factories in the context of Industry 4.0. Their value has already been demonstrated in multiple studies. Typically, worker guidance systems are implemented as standalone systems without interconnections to the enterprise IT architecture and shopfloor environment. As a result, each product variant requires a high maintenance effort compromising the benefits of worker guidance systems especially in high variance production scenarios. This publication proposes a concept to completely integrate such an assistance system into an existing company IT infrastructure. The main goal is to generate the data for worker guidance completely automatically. Interfaces to the ERP and PLM systems make the data sources available. CAD data for augmentation in combination with order details are the backbone for assembly assistance. However, the data has to be prepared, converted, synchronized and merged in order to be processed by the worker guidance system. Integrating microservices at different levels of the automation pyramid make it possible to completely eliminate maintenance efforts that are required in state-of- the-art systems without negatively affecting the quality of worker guidance. In future developments, CAD data should be used for an automatic quality check of the assembly status to upgrade the worker guidance system to a tutorial assistance system.