Mobile devices within manufacturing environments: a BMW applicability study

Abstract

With the realization and need of mobile devices within manufacturing industries, new domains for their use in the automotive OEMs as tools that could be used within different manufacturing processes have emerged. Advent technology has enabled the development of devices such as ultra mobile personal computers (UMPCs) that provide the function of a computer in a compact, mobile configuration and augmented reality (wearable mobile devices) in a production environment where hands-free operation is essential. This paper details BMW's investigation and applicability study of implementing mobile devices within their manufacturing environment to view potential benefits that could be achieved. Manufacturing industries are characterized by many diverse and critical processes, and an effective communication mechanism must be available between such critical processes. It is recognized that the potential for mobile devices in manufacturing process, while realized through current use of mobile phones and PDAs, has not been fully exploited with newer technology. With use of mobile broadband communication, mobile devices can be used for audio and visual communication and provide the ability to transfer large data volumes without location constraints. Overall, the use of mobile devices allows for more effective communication and data sharing/recording. BMW explores the use of mobile devices use within two manufacturing processes: assembly training and pruefcubing. Through an internal study performed, it is realized that the use of mobile devices demonstrates improvements within the manufacturing process in terms of time efficiency, quality, and communication capabilities.

Where Do We Start? Guidance for Technology Implementation in Maintenance Management for Manufacturing

“…The impact of human error on maintenance outcomes has been of significant interest [51] and spurred attention from other organizational psychologists in exploring how culture affects motivation and the execution of quality work and consistency in following procedures [52,47]. Considerable interest exists now in the potential for mobile technologies such as assisted reality and GPS tracking to better understand and support maintainers in the field both in the execution of their work and in how data about the work is collected [53]. The latter is of vital interest to engineers as a maintainer's observations on the as-found condition of an asset can be vital input to validating condition-based work orders.…”

Drivers and Bottlenecks in the Adoption of Augmented Reality Applications

“…Although the use of AR for training purposes is discussed later in this paper, it is worth to mention that AR may bring standardization of the manufacturing training which in the end would reduce costs and training time and allow workers to learn at their own pace [23]. During the training phase, the real devices can be augmented to guide the trainee through the different steps to follow, highlight some specific parts of the devices or point out dangerous parts and/or procedures that need to be avoided, for citing some examples.…”

“…Despite the advantages mentioned through this section, it is still not clear for the industry whether the use of AR technology would return the investments made in the implementation of the system [23], which may be the major impediment in the generalization of AR applications in industry environments.…”

Cognitive Learning, Monitoring and Assistance of Industrial Workflows Using Egocentric Sensor Networks

“…For presenting AR overlays, the used display hardware depends on the current technological developments ranging from rigidly installed screens and monitors [ 1 , 19 ] over mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones [ 20 , 21 ], to HMD s [ 22 ]. While there is an ongoing debate about the applicability of HMD s in industrial settings, such devices are nowadays becoming more ergonomic and lightweight [ 23 ], thus starting to be accepted for daily usage.…”