Implementing Industry 4.0 in SMEs

This open access book addresses the practical challenges that Industry 4.0 presents for SMEs. While large companies are already responding to the changes resulting from the fourth industrial revolution , small businesses are in danger of falling behind due to the lack of examples, best practices and established methods and tools. Following on from the publication of the previous book ‘Industry 4.0 for SMEs: Challenges, Opportunities and Requirements’, the authors offer in this new book innovative results from research on smart manufacturing, smart logistics and managerial models for SMEs. Based on a large scale EU-funded research project involving seven academic institutions from three continents and a network of over fifty small and medium sized enterprises, the book reveals the methods and tools required to support the successful implementation of Industry 4.0 along with practical examples

卓上作業支援システムにおける対話的インタラクション型支援機能の提案

　卓上で作業を行う際，卓上の作業スペースは限られている．この限られた作業スペースを物品が圧迫すると作業の妨げとなる．これを防止するためには作業に必要な物品の取り出しおよび片付けを頻繁に行わなければならない．しかし，作業の合間にそれらの動作を頻繁に行うことは作業効率の低下に繋がる．この問題を解決するために，物品を載せた自走式トレイがユーザの指示を受けるとユーザの代わりに物品の取り出しや片付け動作を行う卓上作業支援システムが提案されている．このシステムは卓上において，情報面，物理面両方の支援を行うAttentive Workbench (AWB) を基本構想としている．上記の卓上作業支援システムにおいて，同時に取り出せる物品は１つのみである．そのため，ユーザが複数の物品を使用する作業を行う場合，ユーザは指示を複数回繰り返す必要がある．この動作はユーザの負担になり作業効率を低減させる．そこで西野らは作業ごとに物品のまとまり(物品グループ) を作成し，複数の物品を同時に搬送するシステムを提案した．しかしこの提案システムでは，物品グループを作成する際，1つの物品が1つの物品グループのみに所属する場合しか想定しておらず，1つの物品が複数の物品グループに所属する場合に対応していなかった．この問題を解決するために葛西らは物品が1つ以上の物品グループに所属することが可能なグループ化手法をユーザの物品使用履歴に適用することで物品のグループ化を行う手法を提案した．　上記のようなグループ化情報に基づいて効率よくユーザを支援するシステムの構築を実現するためには，1つの物品が複数の物品グループに所属する場合でも，ユーザの必要とする物品グループを特定する新たなインタフェースが必要となる．物品グループの特定精度は卓上作業支援システムのユーザビリティに大きく影響する．そのため，より高い精度でユーザの必要とする物品グループを特定することが望ましい．この精度の向上は，対話的インタラクションを行うことで実現可能と考える．ここでいう対話的インタラクションとは，システムが任意の物品グループをユーザに提示することで提示した物品グループがユーザの必要としているものかを尋ね，ユーザがそれに対して応答するインタラクションのことである．対話的インタラクションの際，システムとのインタラクションの回数が多いとユーザの作業効率が低下しかねないため，この回数を極力減らす必要がある．そこで，ユーザが取り出した物品情報と過去に行った作業の履歴からユーザが現在行っている作業を予測する機能を実装する．　本研究では，ユーザの作業予測機能と対話的インタラクション機能によってユーザが行っている作業を特定し，物品取り出しの支援を行う機能を持つインタフェースを提案する．これにより卓上作業効率とユーザビリティの向上を目指す．　本研究で提案するシステムの有用性を評価するために，卓上作業支援システムのシミュレーションアプリケーションを製作し被験者実験を実施した．実験の結果，作業の特定精度は100%となった．また，作業の平均予測精度が約80%となった．さらに，従来の1つずつ物品を取り出す卓上作業システムと比較すると，提案手法が実装されたシステムにおいて，心的負荷が減少することが示唆された．上記の結果から，本研究で提案する手法は，1つの物品が複数の物品グループに所属する環境に対応することができると言える．また，作業効率の向上，またユーザビリティの向上に有用であると考えられる．電気通信大学201

Assistive systems for quality assurance by context-aware user interfaces in health care and production

Rüther S. Assistive systems for quality assurance by context-aware user interfaces in health care and production. Bielefeld: Universitätsbibliothek Bielefeld; 2014.The reprocessing of medical devices is an essential procedure to keep hospitals operational. Workers at the Central Sterilization Supply Department (CSSD) clean, disinfect and sterilize medical devices and have to obligate to the manifold of legal and hygiene prescriptions. Failures during reprocessing can endanger patients' safety and increase costs. The process of decontamination has rich sources of failures because of the complexity of hygiene, medical devices and regulatory specifications. The benefits of an assistance system helping workers in preventing failures are therefore obvious and crucial. New interaction technologies such as augmented reality can potentially help workers in the CSSD to avoid failures during the reprocessing of medical devices. Challenging requirements for the application of new interaction technology within the CSSD arise through process complexity, legislation, integration and hygiene restrictions. This thesis proposes an assistance system that supports the worker in the unclean area of a CSSD with respect to these requirements. The system provides a user interface for context-aware worker guidance and collection of process relevant data from the worker. The proposed interaction mechanism of 'virtual touches' fulfills the hygiene requirements and is realized by an adapted workspace which is equipped with a depth camera and a projected user interface. The 'business process modeling notation 2.0 (BPMN 2.0)' standard is utilized to define process models that control the workflow, coordinate the system's components and maintain a database for quality assurance and worker guidance. In addition to an in depth description of the system, an evaluation with two user studies and interviews with CSSD domain experts are conducted throughout this thesis. The results reveal a high capability for failure avoidance during the reprocessing of medical devices without delaying the process compared to today's CSSDs. Additionally, CSSD experts appraise a high practical relevance and underline the feasibility of the underlying concepts for the CSSD domain. The concepts of the process integration, the standardized modeling of the workflow and workers' tasks as well as the context-aware interface are also helpful, relevant and applicable in the domain of manual assembly processes. Thus, this thesis describes, how the system can be transfered to the domain of manual production. The presentation of a prototype at a renowned international industrial fair and the accompanying feedback from manufacturing experts underline the scalability and the portability of the proposed assistance system to the production domain, which is a result of a component based system architecture utilizing process models for the coordination of computational devices and human workers

4th International Symposium on Ambient Intelligence (ISAmI 2013)

Ambient Intelligence (AmI) is a recent paradigm emerging from Artificial Intelligence (AI), where computers are used as proactive tools assisting people with their day-to-day activities, making everyone’s life more comfortable. Another main concern of AmI originates from the human computer interaction domain and focuses on offering ways to interact with systems in a more natural way by means user friendly interfaces. This field is evolving quickly as can be witnessed by the emerging natural language and gesture based types of interaction. The inclusion of computational power and communication technologies in everyday objects is growing and their embedding into our environments should be as invisible as possible. In order for AmI to be successful, human interaction with computing power and embedded systems in the surroundings should be smooth and happen without people actually noticing it. The only awareness people should have arises from AmI: more safety, comfort and wellbeing, emerging in a natural and inherent way. ISAmI is the International Symposium on Ambient Intelligence and aiming to bring together researchers from various disciplines that constitute the scientific field of Ambient Intelligence to present and discuss the latest results, new ideas, projects and lessons learned, namely in terms of software and applications, and aims to bring together researchers from various disciplines that are interested in all aspects of this area