Session: 02-13-01: Digital Twin Aspects

Paper Number: 66084

Start Time: Tuesday, 11:05 AM

66084 - Tacit Knowledge Capture Using Digital Tools in a Human-Robot Interaction: A Case Study 

Many industries have been increasing intelligent automation using collaborative robots, causing operator and robot interaction to drastically change. Some researchers have identified this evolution as “Next Generation Automation Systems” (NGAS). This research is focused on manufacturing companies who are introducing smart robots into their systems, extending flexibility and reconfigurability to improve the efficiency of their production. Researchers have been exploring a large variety of complex experiences to develop new products and processes to fit this demand. However, the transforming robot and operator interactions are bringing new challenges on these efforts. For example, it is already difficult to integrate human skill into a fabrication process, but now engineers must explore new ways to utilize the connectivity of collaborative robots with humans to optimize production. Collaboration between robots and humans in the same environment creates a new demand to capture and document these experiences for further research.  This information needs to be widely distributed among users and fully understood to improve intelligent automation. This paper analyzes tacit knowledge capture using digital tools and examines a human-robot interaction case study on intelligent automation to support Industry 4.0 trends.  Tacit knowledge is defined as complex experiences and intuition that needs to be identified, categorized, stored, and reused to create a better connection between robots-humans interaction. However, it is complicated to capture and transfer tacit knowledge to other people because each person has a different perspective and experience working with robots. There is a need to improve current capture methods for tacit knowledge and to support human-robot interaction. Industry 4.0 is the next industry revolution, and this is important for the NGAS to organize some aspects such as industry internet of things (IIoT), digital manufacturing, and machine learning among other aspects to embrace advanced manufacturing trends. The motivation of this paper is to explore tacit knowledge models on capturing valuable experiences in the NGAS development. It is well known that tacit knowledge is more complex to capture with the combination of new and innovative technologies in industry 4.0 systems. According to the literature review, different authors have been exploring tacit knowledge models and other authors have been exploring how digital manufacturing can be used in the creation of advanced manufacturing processes. Furthermore, a combination of both has been presented in a few studies. This paper aims to capture valuable tacit knowledge using Tecnomatix as a digital tool and to implement a new knowledge model in the creation of advanced manufacturing which is called NGAS. This paper explores knowledge models and how the valuable tacit electrical, control, and mechanical knowledge is captured using Tecnomatix. The novelty of this paper is how the tacit knowledge model and digital tools will be used in the creation of NGAS reusing tacit knowledge. The methodology of this research consists in the creation of virtual prototypes simulating the collaboration between robot and human interaction in a manufacturing system at station level.  During the creation of the NGAS conceptualization the knowledge model will capture and reuse the valuable tacit electrical, control, and mechanical knowledge.

Presenting Author: David A. Guerra-Zubiaga Kennesaw State University

Authors:

David A. Guerra-Zubiaga Kennesaw State University
Navid Nasajpour-Esfahani Kennesaw State University
Ngan Q. Phan Kennesaw State University
Shalu Gupta Kennesaw State University
Logan Block Kennesaw State University