Manual assembly learning, disability, and instructions: an industrial experiment

Cognitive assistance systems help people with learning disabilities to increase their skills and consequently their employment opportunities in the regular labour market. Research on advanced work instructions has encouraged training disabled workers in cognitively demanding production tasks, especially manual assembly. However, studies lack evidence on the effect of repetition or work cycle alongside the form of instruction and type of disability. This paper addresses this gap and reports on an experiment conducted at a sheltered workplace. Four forms of instruction (paper-based, animations, projection, adaptive projection) were tested to assist operators with three types of disability (illiterate, psychosocial, cognitive) with a manual assembly task. The results show that projection enhances the first assembly cycle. Challenging operators by filtering the content of the instruction with increased experience leads to greater independence and a better understanding of their tasks. However, adaptive instructions can form a barrier for those operators who are most dependent on mentor support. The form of instruction should thus be considered carefully for each operator as their adaptation to changes and cognitive assistance systems varies. The results are discussed in light of the Industry 5.0 human-centric and socially sustainable production agenda with managerial and research implications and future research priorities.