Anwendung von passiven Exoskeletten in der Intralogistik: Ergebnisse und Tendenzen aus ersten Piloteinsätzen

Logistics commands a huge variety of dynamic developments, driven by technological, organizational as well as market changes. In particular, automation and ergonomics is seen as promising trends to tackle potentials for economical, ecological and social sustainability. The publication of this paper marks the third phase of the ADINA research project (automation technology and ergonomic support for innovative picking and transshipment concepts of logistics in NRW). Based on the requirements analysis in phase one and the selection of technologies and ergonomic solutions in phase two of the project, this paper encompasses a detailed description of a pilot application for a passive exoskeleton within the field of intralogistics. In this paper the first results and tendencies of this pilot application are carefully presented. In order to receive representable data and a larger sample of various user experiences, for further evaluation of the exoskeleton, there were employees of three different companies involved in the testing. The main goal for this paper and as well as for the pilot trial is to verify the devices application potential in a real industrial working environment that resembles specific intralogistical processes, like for example a commissioning process. The paper is structured as follows: First of all, the general procedure of the pilot application is being described. The next section covers the questionnaires which are used to acquire the employees user experience. Brief summaries of the testing process, for the respective company, finalize this chapter. The following chapter is dedicated to a detailed evaluation and analysis of the gathered data, the evaluation of the specific results and a conclusion. While these aspects are broken down on a company level in the first section, the same issues are viewed in the next section, though on a meta level were the three companies are not considered separate anymore, to get a final result and conclusion regarding the potential of exoskeleton within the field of intralogistics and especially within the specific examined intralogistical processes.