Human-Centric Facility Layout and Production Planning in Mixed Reality

Abstract

A production system with manual operations tends to have variations in system performance induced by individual differences of human workers. Adjusting the production parameters to meet a specific target under such uncertainty can be time-consuming without the support of advanced simulation tools. Therefore, this research proposes a novel idea of facility layout and system simulation in mixed reality (MR) that facilitates production planning involving human operators. A production planning tool is implemented as an MR application to verify the feasibility of this idea using a test case of logistic facility design. In this case, a manager adjusts the current facility and production parameters designed for one product in order to operate the logistics of two different products that must achieve a given production target. An operator is responsible for manually sorting, transporting, and placing the products for storage. Both are participating in the system simulation as different roles via HoloLens. The MR planning tool provides decision-making support for the manager to quickly complete the adjustment for the target. The planning results show that the tool outperforms traditional simulation software in terms of planning quality and flexibility. Thus, this work verifies the feasibility of MR as a new approach to realizing human-centric production system design.