Integrating Ability Limitations into Assembly System Design

Accompanied by an intensifying demographic change, the number of workers with individual requirements towards assembly workplace design rises. Since assembly work stations are built up according to general ergonomic guidelines, successful allocation of a workforce with an inhomogeneous performance and requirement structure becomes more complex. Current personnel placement methods can only be applied to existing assembly systems. These methods are based on profile comparisons between workplace exposure and worker abilities. A prospective consideration of staff assignment during assembly system design processes lacks in existing literature. The article therefore presents an approach to integrate worker abilities into the design of assembly systems. A methodology to identify exposureinfluencing assembly design processes, to analyze and to quantify workforce abilities and to assess the assembly system in design towards worker integratability by matching exposures and abilities secures assembly systems which adequately fit the employed workforce.