Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA
Display of the results of activity recognition and object detection during an assembly step
WisPE – Efficient Knowledge Externalization in Production
In short
Demographic change is leading to a loss of expertise. Additionally, there is a shortage of skilled workers in production. In "WisPE" a solution is being developed that works as a production assistant for the automated recording and transfer of experiential knowledge. The goal of this project is to better capture, interpret, and evaluate activities in production, thereby externalizing experiential knowledge. This aims to surpass the current state of the art and open up new fields of application.
In detail
In many places, production lacks suitable skilled workers. The increased willingness to change employers, along with demographic changes, is also leading to the loss of valuable experiential knowledge from companies. However, new hires need support during their onboarding process. The knowledge of experienced employees should be optimally utilized without taking up too much of their time.
In "WisPE," the focus is on the human-centered design of a production assistant for the automated externalization of experiential knowledge and the transfer of skills based on experiential knowledge. Employees should be able to acquire know-how without significant time investment from specialists. For the best possible transfer of competences, the experiential knowledge of experts should be consolidated, and subtle differences, which are often unconscious to individuals but crucial to the company's success, should be included.
This project aims to conceptualize, prototype, and evaluate a knowledge-based production assistant, based on image and sensor-based externalization of experiential knowledge, within two use cases in the manufacturing industry. The result should extend the current state of the art by not only capturing activities in production functionally but also interpreting and evaluating them. This would go significantly beyond the current state of the art in production facilities and open up new fields of application, such as in human-robot collaboration.
Schematic representation of the production assistant and its interactions with individual components in “WisPE”.
The “WisPE” project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the European Union via the European Social Fund Plus (ESF Plus) as part of the “Future of Work” program and is managed by the Project Management Agency Karlsruhe (PTKA).