Towards design guidance for the digitalisation of work instructions by focusing on technological possibilities and industrial requirements

Abstract

In consequence of an ongoing change in manufacturing towards cyber-physical production systems (Industry 4.0), there is pressure for industry innovation to maintain and improve competitiveness. One aspect of this process is the digitalisation of work instructions, for example, in assembly or maintenance to use optimization potentials and counteract the increasing complexity and variety of products. A 1:1 transformation of paper-based instructions into a digitalised version often can not assess the full potential of digitalisation and does not fit the underlying hardware. Therefore, the present work deals with a presentation and analysis of existing procedures and possibilities for the digitalisation of work instructions and relates them methodically to the industry’s environmental, work and process-related conditions and requirements. Here, we distinguish between (1) different digitalisation options (text-based, image-based, video/animation-based and Augmented Reality (AR)-based) and (2) different industrial requirements (task and process requirements, user requirements, environmental conditions). A special emphasis is put on AR-based approaches. As a result, we provide design guidance for practitioners’ when chosing digitalisation options for work instructions with respect to present industrial requirements and create a basis for further research work.