Virtual Commissioning of a Projection Based Support System

Abstract

The purpose of the thesis was to investigate the improvement potential regarding the commissioning process of projection based support systems, which guides operators in manual assembly. A case system was used as a representation of this kind of technology. To improve the commissioning process, a virtual commissioning solution was developed, moving parts of the current commissioning process to a digital preparation stage. The investigation ended in a comparison between the current commissioning and the virtual commissioning. To investigate the commissioning, design science research was mainly used to develop a software solution, called an artifact in the method. In a laboratory experiment, the artifact aided virtual commissioning was compared to the current commissioning to assess its potential improvement of the commissioning process. From the development and experiment, virtual commissioning showed promising potential in parts where the connectivity of the system, in other words interoperability was high. The virtual commissioning did however not reach the full desired level of functionality, due to interoperability isolation of some software parts. The results suggested that using virtual commissioning outside the field of robotics to improve the commissioning of other technologies is viable. Improvement potential in this field is however dependent on software factors and interoperability level in the equipment used.