Demands on technology from a human automatism perspective in manual assembly

The automotive industry is continuously challenged by the growing need for customization of cars and trucks, resulting in increasing demand on flexibility, quality and efficiency. Much investigation and development is carried out in the field of automation of processes. However, in manual assembly this automation approach might not be suitable when the flexibility that human operators contribute with is to be retained. In such manual assembly environments the presentation of information becomes essential to succeed with an assembly task. This paper focuses on supporting manual assembly workers in their information seeking behaviour which is a key factor to respond to the issues of quality, efficiency and customization. It addresses potentially important issues in information design that will allow workers to find, translate, and act on information sources in a demanding situation, for instance under time pressure. The approach will take its base in controlled and automatic human information processes and the demands this creates on information presentation in terms of identifying and acting on information sources. A pilot study in Swedish industry has been performed within the scope of the EU- project myCar, which provides much data for this paper.