From the battlefield to the assembly line, that's the route Ford's newest "employee" has taken. However, it's a robot
-- or a virtual worker. It all sounds a little too futuristic, but, as long as it doesn't look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, we should be fine.
Excerpt:
The new guy on the Ford Motor Co. assembly line
is an inexhaustible tough guy with impeccable military and academic
credentials.
His name is Santos, a highly realistic virtual worker who doesn't
just simulate motion; he records the actual physical strains of
reaching, lifting and stretching. He can execute tasks autonomously. He
can walk, talk and answer questions.
Originally created for the U.S. Department of Defense at the
University of Iowa as part of the Virtual Soldier Research program to
help reduce physical strain on soldiers, Santos has been heralded by
ergonomists as a breakthrough in digital modeling.
Santos' move from the virtual battlefield to the virtual assembly
line is the latest step in Ford's efforts to improve ergonomics at its
manufacturing plants.
"Creating the safest and most ergonomic way to build a vehicle is a
trial-and-error process -- in recent years technology has allowed this
process to happen in the virtual world," said Allison Stephens,
ergonomics technical specialist with Vehicle Operations Manufacturing
Engineering. "Santos takes this to a new level. He can perform a task
and tell us whether over months and years it will cause back strain, for
example, and we can make adjustments until we find the optimal way to
get the job done."
Read the entire article
here.
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