How IoT is empowering in the resolution of tough manpower issues?

Workforce issues in manufacturing can be classified as follows:

• The complexity of time

• Complexity of effort

• Complexity of behaviour

  
  

  
  

Problems classified in either of the above categories have a major impact on the workforce, resulting in a negative impact on the outcome—of the product or the organization. The intricacy of these difficulties can be related to the fact that workforce solutions cannot be found using only engineering or technological improvements because there is no single root cause, but rather a collection of elements and events. So, let us investigate a few and look for potential workforce solutions.

1.Managing Time Complexity

A time complicated problem is any workforce-related issue that has a negative impact on operating time due to contributing elements from many industrial systems and processes.

Though traditional paper-based schedules, lists, and punch sheets have been largely replaced by IT-systems such as MES, APS, and SRM, increasing demands for flexibility in manufacturing operations, as well as trends such as batch-size-one, necessitate the development of new methodologies to address these complex issues.

• Employee attendance

Anyone who has witnessed a typical day in the life of a factory supervisor will be familiar with the tension that occurs shortly before the start of a work shift. Uncertainty over who will report absent until shortly before the shift begins is a challenging issue that every line manager would like to handle. While scheduled absenteeism may be managed to some extent, it is last-minute sick or emergency-pager text messages, as well as transportation delays, that complicate daily production planning.

Attempting to automate shift planning with resource planning systems.

During this period, in addition to ensuring that every line manager gets precise information regarding the confirmed hands for the shift, it is also critical that employees' health and well-being be monitored during this epidemic. The use of technologies such as radar, millimetre wave sensors, and so on would allow for the live tracking of workers around the shop floor while also ensuring that social distancing rules are followed.

• Mapping of Resources

While resource skill-mapping and certification are primarily HR functions, not having the correct resource at the workstation during emergencies such as absenteeism or increased workload is a challenging issue. Precious time is lost in locating such resources, or, worse, millions of dollars are spent in overtime.

What if there was a tool that examined a resource's current workload for the identified skillset code(s) and provided an accurate estimate of the resource's availability? Shop managers might use this to schedule manpower for a shift, keeping them as lean as feasible.

Today, OEM IT teams are seen collaborating with software suppliers to develop such analytic systems.

2. Managing Effort Complexity

Just as time complications increase production time, difficulties in this area cause the workforce to exert more effort to finish the same amount of work. Because the amount of effort required is proportional to the weariness and long-term well-being of the workforce, finding workforce solutions that reduce effort would be appreciated. Complexity develops when businesses attempt to devise a strategy that takes into account a number of aspects such as changing labour profiles, production sequences, logistical and process constraints, and demand changes.

Fortunately, solutions to this type of challenge can be found in new technologies that improve existing ones.

•  Exoskeletons that are intelligent

Exoskeletons, as we know, are powered bodysuits designed to protect and support the person while completing duties, while boosting overall human efficiency. These are used in strain-inducing postures or to raise objects that would be tiresome after a few repetitions otherwise. Exoskeletons are the cutting-edge solution to minimising user fatigue in areas that demand human skill and dexterity but would otherwise necessitate a complicated robot that would cost a fortune.

Manufacturers can now aim to construct intelligent exoskeletons that are always connected to factory systems and user profiles, taking a cue from Marvel's Iron Man, who employs a suit that complements his posture and is controlled by JARVIS. These suits will adapt and respond to assistance needs without any interference, allowing the user to work and focus entirely on the main task at hand.

Given the current COVID situation, it would be safer for workers and management if these suits were equipped with sensors and technology such as radar/millimeter wave to assist in observing social distancing, body-temperature measurement, and so on.

•  Highlighting potential discrepancies

Quality teams on factory floors all across the world use checklists, which the quality inspector confirms for each product that arrives at the inspection station. While this repeated task is ideally suited for robots, when humans perform such repetitive tasks, particularly those involving the use of visual, aural, touch, and olfactory senses, errors and misses are unavoidable. As a result, costly reworks and recalls are required.

Manufacturers have attempted to overcome this complexity by rotating staff. However, given the available staff and ever-increasing workloads, this, too, has met with limited success.

Fortunately, predictive quality integrators are available.

3.Managing Behavioral Complexity

Problems in this area typically emerge as a quality issue, but the underlying cause is frequently traceable to employee behaviour or profile. Traditionally, corporations addressed such issues through experienced supervisors, who were expected as people managers to recognise these indicators, anticipate, and align the workforce.

With continually shifting manpower and product varieties, these are now complicated new-age problems that necessitate new-age solutions.

• Workload heat-mapping

At the workplace, time and motion studies map the user's motions around the machine with the time each activity takes to complete, matching the available cycle-time, either by task distribution or by increasing manpower at that station. As time-consuming and inconvenient as it is, the complexity grows when task balancing is required for teams working on a single product at a workstation. Multiple resource movements during distinct sequences are difficult to track, and individual users cannot be expected to follow the same path every time.

To address this issue, a solution that will unobtrusively monitor human movements, link it to the product work content at the workstation, and create recommendations to balance the workload and even out the 'congestion' is required. Short-range radar and optical feeds, among other new industrial uses, can be utilised to build heat maps of the crew while they work on the product. This can be placed on the process's digital doppelganger to indicate the zone of 'congestion.' This can be supplied into the line-planning function, which can then implement corrective measures like task distribution or partial outsourcing of the activity.

   

•  Workforce Aging (loss of tribal knowledge)

As new technology enters the shop floor, the skills of the current workers quickly become obsolete. Furthermore, with any new employment comes the essential responsibility of training and information transfer from experienced hands. With firms already facing a labour crisis, freeing more hands to train a bigger workforce audience, maybe across multiple locations, becomes an even more onerous undertaking.

Recognizing the obstacles and reluctance to document, firms are increasingly embracing AR-based worker trainings that correspond to relevant learning and memory demands. These AR solutions record the smallest details of the expert's actions on the shop floor and may be replayed in-situ by the novice as a step-by-step instruction. Such tools simplify the knowledge transfer process while also increasing worker productivity and lowering costs.

Furthermore, in extreme situations such as the one we are currently in, technologies such as augmented reality (AR) provide alternatives for effective and individualised support to field employees without the need to fly in specialists from numerous locations.