Effect of Instructions on Parts' Positions during an Assembly Task on Efficiency and Workload

Abstract

: This paper examines the effect of instructions on parts' positions during an assembly task having numerous parts for someone to remember where they are located. Hypothesizing that instructions relating to the positions of the parts would enhance work efficiency and reduce workload, we designed an experimental method to test this theory. In this experiment using educational blocks, visual instructions were given by illuminating the space where the parts are kept, while auditory instructions were provided to aid locating the parts to compare the efficiency of visual and auditory instructions. Experiments with six participants showed that the visual instruction significantly shortened not only the search time but also the assembly time (which was one way in which efficiency was assessed in this study). The use of parts' positions instructions tended to reduce the workload as evaluated with NASA-TLX compared with the cases without instructions.