Using Therbligs to embed intelligence in workpieces for digital assistive assembly

Current OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) facilities tend to be highly integrated and are often situated on one site. While providing scale of production such centralisation may create barriers to the achievement of fully flexible, adaptable, and reconfigurable factories. The advent of Industry 4.0 opens up opportunities to address these barriers by decentralising information and decision-making in manufacturing systems through CPS (Cyber Physical Systems) use. This research presents a qualitative study that investigates the possibility of distributing information and decision-making logic into ‘smart workpieces’ which can actively participate in assembly operations. To validate the concept, a use-case demonstrator, corresponding to the assembly of a ‘flat-pack’ table, was explored. Assembly parts in the demonstrator, were equipped with computation, networking, and interaction capabilities. Ten participants were invited to evaluate the smart assembly method and compare its results to the traditional assembly method. The results showed that in its current configuration the smart assembly was slower. However, it made the assembly process more flexible, adaptable and reconfigurable.