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Methods

Society 50 Opportunity

Aging workers are expert and multi-skilled operators able to transfer know-how to the youngers in several ways. The aim of our researches is to foster the inclusion of ageing workers in the industrial system as much as possible by enhancing their motivation and expertise.

In our models and test cases we are putting a large attention in describing all the individual factors as workers’ physical measures and characteristics, cognitive status, experience levels, skills and special needs.

The researchers in MAIA apply several kind of methods and integrate different expertise in the design of production systems that are both effective and sustainable from human and technical perspectives:

  • Developing new learning and forgetting curves for ageing workers
  • Simulating the manufacturing reality in a virtual environment
  • Developing and testing new assistive technologies and smart tools focusing on acceptability, personalization and security for the worker
  • Creating with stakeholders and workers test cases in order to test the solutions and validate the methodologies
  • Modelling the system performances by a socio-economics point of view
  • Managing knowledge transfer from seniors to youngers and the seniors re-skilling process
  • Measuring the decrease in functional capacities for ageing workers
  • Monitoring with wearable sensors ergonomics parameters
  • Optimizing work assignment, working shifts and job rotation strategies
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Virtual Reality and Immersive Reality Motion Capture System in the Ergo-lab at the University of Padova

Project USA² – financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, grant number: 16SV6191) within the Human-Technology Interaction (MTI) program/ technological development by Chair of Building Realisation and Robotics, TUM, Munich. Image: Schlegelmilch

The data collected with the inertial motion capture system are processed by a real time software tool developed in the Ergo-lab at the University of Padova. This software permits to have an ergonomic assessment in real-time using RULA, OWAS, OCRA and Lifting Index methods.