Approach for a Digital Operator Support System for Manual Machine Setup

The migration of Manufacturing Execution Systems could eliminate existing paper-based communication media for engineers and operators. This paper presents an approach to solve the resulting information deficit for the R&D process by the integration of a digital operator support system in a humancentered production environment. The design of the solution is based on analyzing the problem statement from two perspectives: (1) Logistics and material flow, (2) applied computer science. For (1) the machine setup is analyzed leveraging the Single Minute Exchange of Dies method. For (2) the design of the user interface for the digital operator support system the standards DIN EN ISO 9241-110 and DIN EN ISO 9241-12 are applied. The solution has been applied and evaluated through a user survey and measuring production performance indicators. Analysis of collected data shows increased user satisfaction and increased worker confidence of over 90% and a reduction of re-work up to 80%.