An Industry 4.0 Production Workplace Enhanced by Using Mixed Reality Assembly Instructions with Microsoft HoloLens

Abstract

Every emerging technology raises the question which already existing processes and solutions can be replaced or adapted. Before implement these technologies they should be evaluated on their positive or negative impacts on already existing approaches. Furthermore, technical resources, organizational conditions and human factors have to be considered. In order to measure these impacts an appropriate industry scenario or use case should be defined. To foster the technology introduction in real world industry scenarios existing work processes were investigated and adapted. Prototypical implementations should give required insights to evaluate new technologies in defined use cases. In this work we introduce a Mixed Reality (MR) assembly instruction in manufacturing domain to support the worker in ensuring a zero failure culture. In an existing workstation of a scooter production line at the LEAD Factory at Graz University of Technology (TU-Graz) we introduced a emerging technology implemented on the Microsoft HoloLens. Based on this technology the existing textual instruction of one workplace was replaced by an interactive 3D assembly instruction. This paper describes the prototypical implementation of a MR assembly instruction with Microsoft HoloLens and summarizes the upcoming challenges as well as considerations and decisions during the implementation.