Assembly Training: Comparing the Effects of Head-Mounted Displays and Face-to-Face Training

Abstract

Due to increasing complexity of assembly tasks at manual workplaces, intensive training of new employees is absolutely essential to ensure high process and product quality. Interactive assistive systems are becoming more and more important as they can support workers during manual procedural tasks. New assistive technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) are introduced to the industrial domain, especially in the automotive industry. AR allows for enriching our real world with additional virtual information. We are observing a trend in using head-mounted displays (HMDs) in order to support new employees during assembly training tasks. This technology claims to improve the efficiency and quality of assembly and maintenance tasks but so far, HMDs have not been scientifically compared against face-to-face training. In this paper, we aim to close this gap in research by comparing HMD instructions to face-to-face training using a real-life engine assembly task. We executed a training-session with a total of 36 participants. Results showed that trainees who performed the assembly training with HMD support made 10% less picking mistakes, 5% less assembly mistakes and 60% caused less rework but they are significantly slower compared to face-to-face training. We further aimed to rate user satisfaction by using the system usability scale (SUS) questionnaire. Results indicated an average SUS of 73,5 which means ‘good’. These and further findings are presented in this paper.