Virtual Production Process Planning in Virtual Reality

Human factors in the manufacturing environment reach beyond the Virtual Build and Assembly issues illustrated in many of the videos posted with IC.IDO. In this example, the racking and sorting of parts at the end of a stamping production line are considered.

Unlike, assembly line process planning, this is a far more varied and diverse task in the production environment. While this racking procedure is likely being repeated hundreds of times per hour, this process might only make up a portion of the production shift. Each day a single production line might see product mix at the end of the line that changes 3-4 times each shift across all three shifts. This means that a single production plant might need to evaluate the human factors of several hundred of similar operations every years, as new products and new processes cycle in and out of that plant.

Similarly, line change-over between production lots is a human-centric process that bears evaluation in the advanced planning of production lines.