Significance of Haptic Feedback in Learning Lathe Operating Skills

Significance of haptic cues, in a manual lathe operation, is less acknowledged and has not been given much emphasis, during lathe training. In this paper, a formative usability approach was pursued to appraise the importance of including haptic feedback from the hand-wheel of a lathe. The primary data was collected with a survey questionnaire, adopting purposive sampling method. The target population included people familiar with lathe operations, grouped into strata of beginners, intermediates and experts. The hypothesis formulated from the empirical study was tested using the Chi-square test. The result showed a significant trend between the intensity of haptic feedback, the participants perceive on the user hand-wheel and their experience-level in using a manual lathe. The results of this study can contribute to development of a haptic simulator, designed to train manual lathe operators, with sophisticated skills.