Session: 02-10-01: Session #1: Robotics and Automation in Advanced Manufacturing

Paper Number: 95452

95452 - Design of Human-Robot Collaborative Workstation for the Packaging of Kitchen Furniture 

Collaborative robotics is one of the main key pillars within the smart factory of the future and plays a pivotal role for today’s advanced manufacturing industry to be competitive. The interaction between man, machine, and digitalization is the core of human-robot collaboration. Moreover, in this novel context, production systems need to be more flexible and responsive to face the mass customization process. Thus, the introduction and the implementation of flexible and interoperable technologies, such as collaborative robots, are essential. To this aim, in recent years, the industrial and research communities have made considerable efforts to guarantee a safe and integrated shared workspace. Collaborative robots enable direct interaction and cooperation between humans and robots, overcoming the traditional division of work. The greatest advantage of the collaboration is the possibility to merge the robot’s capabilities, such as accuracy, repeatability, and speed, and the human’s faculties, such as cognition, flexibility, and creativity. Cobots can perform strenuous, repetitive, and hazardous activities enhancing the operator’s well-being and ergonomics.  However, with the introduction of collaborative robots, companies have to face the challenge of making their workplaces safe and ergonomic. Thus, it is necessary to consider different contrasting issues during the design of the human-robot collaboration. This paper presents the design of a collaborative workstation for the packaging of cabinets in the major Italian kitchen manufacturer. After a deep analysis of the production line in terms of productivity, products variability, cycle time, and efficiency, several requirements and specifications have been identified. The workstation needs to be completely configurable according to the production schedule, the product’s characteristics, and the operator’s anthropometric measures to ensure workers’ safety and well-being preserving productivity and efficiency. The high variability of the product in terms of dimension, shape, and weight characterizes the furniture sector leading to the difficulty of implementing a robot adaptable to any product’s feature. To guarantee a safe collaboration, the task allocation and the modality of cooperation between the robot and the operator have been defined considering all possible scenarios. The design of the collaborative workstation and its integration on the production line required to consider not only safety requirements (which must be guaranteed in any case) but also the impact of the collaboration for the operator. For this aim, the ergonomic analysis has been carried out to assess the ergonomic risks for the operator during the collaboration with the robot. Finally, the collaborative workstation has been simulated by using the software Tecnomatix Process Simulate. The simulation allowed analyzing and evaluating different aspects: ergonomic risks, layout optimization, and time and performance analysis. The simulation results showed significant benefits from both ergonomic and efficiency points of view.

Presenting Author: Marianna Ciccarelli Università Politecnica delle Marche

Presenting Author Biography: I am Marianna Ciccarelli, a PhD student at “Università Politecnica delle Marche”, Italy. From November 2019 I started collaborating with the Department of Industrial Engineering and Mathematical Sciences (DIISM) as a research fellow. In November 2020 I was admitted to the PhD course in Industrial Engineering. My PhD topics focus on the development of methods and tools for the Human-Centered Design and the safe Human-Robot Collaboration. The main research activities concentrate on collaborative robotics and the related themes of safety and physical and cognitive ergonomics for the operator.

Authors:

Marianna Ciccarelli Università Politecnica delle Marche
Simir Moschini Università Politecnica delle Marche
Matteo Claudio Palpacelli Università Politecnica delle Marche
Alessandra Papetti Università Politecnica delle Marche
Michele Germani Università Politecnica delle Marche