Human interaction with variability in manual manufacturing processes. A case study.

This paper summarises the investigation of human interaction with external variability in a complex manual manufacturing process. Humans play a key role in complex manufacturing processes in industry and skilled operators carry out critical tasks in different industries such as aerospace, automotive and heavy-machinery. Most of these processes are difficult to automate due to the external variability presents in the processes. To understand how humans are coping with this variability and successfully delivering a product complying with the standards required is fundamental in order to automate the process.