Automatic estimation of the ergonomics parameters of assembly operations

The ergonomics of assembly operations affects standard operation times and assembly reliability. It is a complicated time-consuming task to estimate the ergonomics parameters of operations in assembly cells. Assembly operations are simulated in a virtual environment, and ergonomic parameters including the visibility of an assembling part, posture and reachability of an operator are quantified automatically by using images of the assembling part which are automatically generated. The highest score among the image is selected as the ergonomics score of the assembly operation. The proposed method is tested by applying it to the assembly operations of a PC. Results demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed method.