Abstract

Abstract
Objective: A systematic literature review was conducted to identify relevant ergonomic and safety factors for designing collaborative workspaces in industrial settings. Background: The growing use of smart and collaborative robots in manufacturing brings some challenges for the human-robot interaction design. Human-centered manufacturing solutions will improve physical and mental well-being, performance, productivity and sustainability. Method: A systematic review of the literature was performed based on the protocol of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. Results: After a search in the databases Scopus and Web of Science, applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, 33 publications in the English language, published between the years 2010 and 2020, remained in the final analysis. Publications were categorized in cognitive ergonomic factors (13), safety factors (10), physical ergonomic factors (6) and organizational ergonomic factors (4). The analysis of results reinforced that to optimize the design of collaborative workstations it is imperative to have a holistic perspective of collaboration, integrating multiple key factors from areas such as engineering, ergonomics, safety, sociology and psychological as well as manufacturing efficiency and productivity. Application: Considering the advantages of the use of cobots in manufacturing, the results of this review will be useful to support companies in implementing human-robot collaboration. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Abstract

Abstract

Abstract
In the pursuit of increasing efficiency, productivity and flexibility at production lines and their corresponding workstations, manufacturing companies have started to heavily invest in "collaborative workspaces" where close interaction between humans and robots promises to lead to these goals that neither can achieve on their own. Therefore, it is necessary to know the contributions, recommendations and guidelines that literature presents in terms of designing a manufacturing workplace where humans and cobots interact with each other to accomplish the defined objectives. These aspects need to be explored in an integrated and multidisciplinary way to maximize human involvement in the decision chain and to promote wellbeing and quality of work. This paper presents a systematic literature review on designing human-robot collaboration (HRC) workspaces for humans and robots in industrial settings. The study involved 252 articles in international journals and conferences proceedings published till 2019. A detailed selection process led to including 65 articles to further analysis. A framework that represents the complexity levels of the influencing factors presented in human-robot interaction (HRI) contexts was developed for the content analysis. Based on this framework the guidelines and recommendations of the analysed articles are presented in three categories: Category 1 - the first level of complexity, which considers only one specific influencing factor in the HRI. This category was split into two: human operator, and technology; Category 2 - the second level of complexity, includes recommendations and guidelines related to human-robot team's performance, and thus several influencing factors are present in the HRI; and, finally, Category 3 - the third level of complexity, where recommendations and guidelines for more complex and holistic approaches in the HRI are presented. The literature offers contributions from several knowledge areas capable to design safe, ergonomic, sustainable, and healthy human-centred workplaces where not only technical but also social and psychophysical aspects of collaboration are considered.