Democratizing Industrial Collaborative Robot Technology through Interactive Workshops in Learning Factories

6 Pages Posted: 7 Apr 2022

See all articles by Bernd Hader

Bernd Hader

TU Wien - Institute of Management Science

Christina Schmidbauer

TU Wien - Institute of Management Science

Themistoklis Christakos

Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems & Automation, Department of Mechanical Engineering & Aeronautics

Eleni Tzavara

Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems & Automation, Department of Mechanical Engineering & Aeronautics, University of Patras, Patras 26504, Greece

Sotiris Makris

University of Patras

Sebastian Schlund

TU Wien

Date Written: March 7, 2022

Abstract

Teaching collaborative robots to non-experts/laypersons has been an ongoing research topic to unfold the promising possibilities of this technology in manufacturing. A teaching concept was designed, implemented as a comprehensive one-day workshop, conducted and evaluated in several EU countries to engage and teach participants from different backgrounds. The content focuses on the essential knowledge that is required to use a collaborative robot to automate a manual assembly process and to interact safely with a cobot in the same workspace. A mixed-methods approach was used to deliver the learning content, consisting of frontal and interactive parts. The implementation was done in two steps. First, 12 workshops were conducted in 5 different EU countries to engage and teach 124 participants from universities and companies in open workshops and learning/teaching factories. Second, the learning content was implemented on a digital learning platform to ensure future deployment by pupils, students, teachers, workers, employees and managers. During the workshops, an evaluation was conducted through questionnaires before and after the event. The results of this evaluation are presented in this paper. Hence, this paper contributes to the research on learning and teaching development, implementation and evaluation focusing on cobot technology in learning and teaching factories.

Keywords: Teaching Concept, Collaborative Robots, Education, Assembly, Learning Factory

JEL Classification: L60, I20

Suggested Citation

Hader, Bernd and Schmidbauer, Christina and Christakos, Themistoklis and Tzavara, Eleni and Makris, Sotiris and Schlund, Sebastian, Democratizing Industrial Collaborative Robot Technology through Interactive Workshops in Learning Factories (March 7, 2022). Proceedings of the 12th Conference on Learning Factories (CLF 2022), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4074037 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4074037

Bernd Hader (Contact Author)

TU Wien - Institute of Management Science ( email )

Theresianumgasse 27
Vienna, 1040
Austria

Christina Schmidbauer

TU Wien - Institute of Management Science ( email )

Theresianumgasse 27
Vienna, 1040
Austria

Themistoklis Christakos

Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems & Automation, Department of Mechanical Engineering & Aeronautics ( email )

Department of Mechanical Engineering & Aeronautics
Patras, 26504
Greece

Eleni Tzavara

Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems & Automation, Department of Mechanical Engineering & Aeronautics, University of Patras, Patras 26504, Greece ( email )

Sotiris Makris

University of Patras ( email )

Sebastian Schlund

TU Wien ( email )

Theresianumgasse 27
Vienna, 1040
Austria

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