Use of Data-Driven Simulation Modeling and Visual Computing Methods for Workplace Evaluation

Abstract

In the time of Industry 4.0, the dynamic adaptation of companies to global market demands plays a key role in ensuring sustainable financial and time justification. Financial accessibility, a wide range of user-friendliness, and credible results of the visual computing methods and data-driven simulation modeling enable a higher degree of usability in small, medium, and large enterprises. This paper presents an innovative method for modelling and simulating workplaces in manufacturing based on visual data captured with a spherical camera. The presented approach uses simulation scenarios to investigate the optimization of manual or collaborative workplaces. We evaluated and compared three simulated scenarios, the results of which highlight the potential for improvement regarding manufacturing productivity and cost. In addition, ergonomic analyses of a manual assembly workplace were performed using existing evaluation metrics. The results show the possibility of creating a three-dimensional model of a workplace captured with a spherical camera, which not only describes the model dimensionally but also adds terminological and other production parameters obtained through the analysis of manufacturing system videos. The confirmation of the appropriateness of introducing collaborative workstations is also confirmed by ergonomic analyses Ovaco working analyzing system (OWAS) and rapid upper limb assessment (RULA), which demonstrate the sustainable limits of manual assembly workplaces.