Human-robot collaborative work cell implementation through lean thinking

Industry 4.0 stresses the importance of considering production automation as an integrated and collaborative teamwork process between human workers and intelligent machines and tools. Collaborative robotics is a recent field of study for industrial automation. Although fenceless robot systems are available, the actual implementation of collaborative schemes for the conduction of assembly jobs should be supported through dedicated procedures and guidelines. These procedures have yet to be found and defined in detail. In this work, the authors claim that it may be possible to approach the problem of collaborative cell design with the methods devised for lean thinking. In the paper, the most common lean strategies are listed and analysed from the viewpoint of setting up a collaborative work cell. The most suitable strategies and tools are then recommended in a methodology that has been proposed to redesign an industrial assembly cell. The methodology has then been adopted in the presented industrial use case which is focused on the steps of HRC design process such as tasks assignment and scheduling.