A method, a tool (CORA) and application examples for analysing disassembly user interface design criteria

Abstract

During the past two decades the computing industry has developed several different, at the time, dominating user interfaces. These initially offered text-based screens, such as DOS, and then, with the invention of the MIT-, then Xerox- and then (the significantly faster and better) Apple Computer-created windowing interfaces, a graphical environment was born. With various modifications and enhancements, this was adopted by most leading software vendors, and it is widely used today in any computer-integrated device, or machine. (It is important to mention that the latest and best of these innovations come from Apple computers again, with the introduction of the new OS X Aqua windowing interface. There is no doubt, that all major software vendors will try to mimic this seamless graphical design, with vector-based fonts, professional colour management, and fast, animated objects; just as they did in the past.) Since most knowledge workers, and even operators and line managers on the shop floor, spend over half--or even more--of their time looking at various computer screens in a digital enterprise, eTransition user interface design issues are critical. The objective of our research was to create an object/component oriented requirements analysis method and software tool that enables enterprises to analyse and design all critical aspects of their user interfaces for product/process design, manufacturing, demanufacturing, and other process, including total quality control and even software engineering over the web and/or their company intranets. (Note that we did not limit our approach to computer user interfaces; nevertheless, since even CNC machine tools, robots, smart sensor interfaces, vision systems, and other web-linked devices on the shop floor offer browser readable multimedia interfaces, we included in our study and analysis all web-linked and web-enabled devices that enterprises use.) Our solution is generic, nevertheless, due to the importance of this method during the multi-lifecycle eTransition process, we focus here on providing an analytical method for evaluating various disassembly line manager and operator user requirements, based on appropriate engineering solutions, including the parameter ranges and their correlation matrices of such solutions. One of the results of this R@D effort is our implemented and validated, web-enabled, open source CORA Tool (Object/Component Oriented Requirements Analysis Tool).