Low-Code Development in Worker Assistance Systems: Improving Flexibility and Adaptability

Worker assistance systems (AS) are a promising way to support workers in complex production processes or unfamiliar manual activities. In order to leverage their full potential, the information these systems provide have to be adapted to the specific needs of the users and the underlying production processes. With shorter product lifecycles and increasing process variability, the time and knowledge required to regenerate the instructional content becomes a crucial success factor. In this paper, we introduce the concept of low-code development as an alternative approach to existing ways of generating content for AS. To validate our concept, we implemented an editing tool based on node graphs, which enables end users to develop AS for a wide range of industrial processes without the need of any expertise in software engineering. This way, the end users, comprised of shop-floor staff and domain experts, can utilize their extensive production know-how that is required for the implementation of AS in elaborate production systems. Empirical evidence gained by developing two AS for different industrial processes showed that the proposed graph-based approach is faster, more flexible and offers better usability than existing solutions.