Data processing: generic control systems or specific application – Specific application – apparatus or process – Product assembly or manufacturing
Reexamination Certificate
1999-11-24
2002-11-05
Picard, Leo (Department: 2125)
Data processing: generic control systems or specific application
Specific application, apparatus or process
Product assembly or manufacturing
C700S108000, C700S111000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06477437
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
The present application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119 of Japanese Patent Application No. HEI 10-337344, filed on Nov. 27, 1998, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an assembly work support system that provides instructions from the system to the worker regarding work procedures, work contents, and particular instruction points, and receives information from the worker. The work support system may be employed in a process for assembling wire harnesses.
2. Description of Relevant Materials
Conventionally, in some types of assembly line (e.g., in assembling wire harnesses), several assembly diagram boards are conveyed on a conveyor apparatus at a certain speed. As the assembly diagram boards are conveyed to the work stations of individual workers, each worker undertakes a designated set of tasks.
For example, the conveyor assembly line may be employed in the case of a wire harness, which is constituted by bundling a plurality of electric wires. From different locations along the bundle, one or more wires diverge from a “main” bundle, and connectors are fixed to both ends of the main bundle and to the ends of the diverging wires as well. Further, clamps, grommets, corrugated tubes, identification tape, and the like are fitted at predetermined positions. In the conveyer assembly line as noted above, in the case of a wire harness, the arrangement of wires to the assembly diagram board, insertion of terminals into connectors, winding tape on arranged wires, or clamping of the clamp parts onto the arranged wires is undertaken at the different work stations.
An explanation of the step(s) or instruction(s) to be performed at a work station, whether concrete work procedures, work contents, or instruction points, is usually provided in the form of written documents including diagrams or text that are intended to facilitate a worker's understanding of the work to be performed. However, with written documents, it is necessary that the workers simultaneously perform their own work while reviewing the documents including the drawings or text, which is difficult and time-consuming.
In addition, workers that are new to a particular assembly routine need to be trained before being permitted to take their place in the line. However, with written training instructions, the worker does not obtain the same familiarity with different parts and procedures as would be obtained by practicing the actual assembly. Moreover, if the assembly routine learned by the worker is erroneous (for any reason), both parts and time will be wasted if the worker takes his or her place on the line and then performs an erroneous assembly routine, perhaps repeatedly.
If an actual production line and actual parts are necessary for training and practice, workers in the locale in which a facility is to be built, or in an existing facility to which a new production line or routine is to be started, cannot be trained before their exposure to the actual line. In such a case, resources are wasted in training on a line that could be in production, and errors that occur even after the actual line becomes available for full production.
Still further, it is an accepted fact that instructions and training will often tend to generate mistakes when new or different instructions and training are employed, for example, by virtue of the differences between the training designer's perceptions and the perception of various individual workers. It is also accepted that individual workers have differing “quality” in the form of, e.g., efficiency or skill, and that unanticipated bottlenecks and flow disparities will occur in any work flow design. However, it is difficult to keep track of these factors without imposing a significant monitoring burden in time and effort expended, both on the overall process and on the workers themselves.
Provisions for training and for work support are generally distinct from one another. When a change is made to, for example, training provisions (e.g., by changing content or appearance of documents), there is a constant risk that the change will not be propagated to the work support provisions, and vice versa. Monitoring two-way compliance is a significant burden on any such system. Moreover, facility and support costs are high in view of redundancies and duplication between the discrete and distinct provisions.
Additionally, training and work support provisions in the form of written documents need to be wholly localized to every national language in which the assembly workers must learn and work. Essentially identical assembly routines (along with their necessary facilities) are moved to or initiated in different countries, all of the written documents for training and work support must be localized, which is expensive and increases the risk of mistakes and inconsistencies between different facilities.
Although there is known an inspection support system for a wire harness, for conveying inspection instructions by synthesized voice to the worker by a speaker (Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication HEI 8-271570), assembly instructions and inspection instructions have different requirements, and a synthesized voice alone is not usually sufficient to provide complicated assembly instructions to a worker.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a work support system with which improvement of work efficiency can be expected by adopting a visual system for assembly work support. That is, to cope with the above shortcomings in the conventional support systems, the invention envisions a system to relate instructions of the work content to be carried out by moving pictures or still pictures on a monitor, instead of written documents as conventionally practiced.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, an assembly work support system includes memory storage from which instruction data for processing an assembly is readable. A converter, in response to a work start signal, reads the instruction data and converts the instruction data into an output signal that includes one or both of a voice signal, an image signal. A terminal receives the output signal and outputs corresponding assembly messages to an operator, and the system includes an operator input device adapted to receive interactive input data from the operator. A controller receives the interactive input data from the operator input device and interprets the interactive input data.
If a system employing moving or still pictures is adopted, a system for training and simulated practice of assembly work allows the worker to respond to the instructions through feedback, e.g., manipulation of a mouse before exposure to a production line—that is, before the worker is permitted to join the line, or even before the production line actually exists at the worker's locale. According to this assembly training and simulated practice system, even without the actual parts to be assembled or diagram boards for assembly, it becomes possible to train a worker to a high degree of proficiency.
When such an assembly practice system is used in combination with feedback or work confirmation provided in the actual assembly line (e.g., by means of a sensor, or in which the worker can convey information to the system by operation or voice), the work support system then becomes easy to understand, very strongly relates the training and simulated practice to actual work, and permits the confirmation of work progress and the prevention of erroneous fitting of parts is realized.
Still further, in this manner, employing actual or schematic representations of all of the parts and routines in an assembly process removes any necessity for workers to read text, and the system can be made into a standard form which may be employed anywhere in the world. Any need to localize textual instructions to suit different national languages, e.g., in pl
Greenblum & Bernstein P.L.C.
Kosowski Alexander J
Picard Leo
Sumitomo Wiring Systems Ltd.
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