Quantifying production complexity in the assembly of industrial robots: Does everyday complexity affect the quality of your product?

Abstract

With the advancements of Industry 4.0 being rapidly achieved, Industry 5.0 aims to create a sustainable and socially responsible industrial practice. The framework of Industry 5.0 centrally aims to integrate the human workforce with advanced digital technologies thereby striving for inclusive growth and societal acceptance. Understanding the current state of a production system helps relevant stakeholders to focus on key areas to improve and achieve a smooth integration between humans and digital tools. Complexity affects daily production activities in numerous ways. Understanding the causes of complexity helps in tackling the perceived problems of the workforce and finding deviations in production activities. This thesis project explores the ways to define and quantify complexity in a produc tion line using an objective and subjective method. The results show that out of the 6 assigned assembly lines for the study, 4 lines were concluded to be complex for the operators and from a general overview. The possibilities to manage complexity have also been discussed for application in a similar research environment in the future.