A Complementary Approach to Flexible Automation

Abstract

In the early days of automation the engineer designed the task to be automated in a manner where technical solutions were available. The rest of the work had to be done by the operator. These technically oriented systems failed because they were not flexible and the human had no possibilities to intervene or override the programmed process. In this paper a method for the design of automated, sociotechnical work systems is presented. It is based on a concept of complementary allocation of functions between human operators and machines. The method was used to design a robot system for automated charging of a press brake within a computer integrated sheet metal forming cell. This leads to extended requirements of the technology that are briefly presented.