Optimizing human-machine interaction in manual assembly

This contribution introduces a concept for human-machine interaction in a working environment. A foot pedal based interface was applied for the investigation of capabilities and bottlenecks in human information processing as well as for the user-controlled timing of relevant information presentation. The use of the interaction concept was tested within an experimental study, where complexity of a manual assembly task was varied in order to manipulate respective processing resources. Results were interpreted regarding the development of an assistive system in production environments and regarding the optimization of human-machine interaction in general.