A computational assessment of ergonomics in an industrial human-robot collaboration workplace using system dynamics

Abstract

An automotive company in Portugal has a high rate of sick leave due to occupational diseases where it is planned the insertion of an industrial Human-Robotic Collaboration (HRC) system to assist workers’ activities. As this system can result in physical and mental overload, depending on the different Levels of Collaboration (LoC), the aim of this paper is to predict what would be the best working condition between worker and robot. This descriptive research establishes a quantitative approach, since it prospects scenarios generated by computer simulation. It explores the outputs of sick leave rate by inserting an industrial HRC in the production line. The main results consist of the scenarios that graphically describe the evolution of the indicators over time. We conclude that counterintuitive effects can occur on these systems, and a computational simulation is useful to predict working condition scenarios when deciding which human-robot configuration fits better.