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Text to Task: Changing the Human/machine Interface
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
By Simon Langham, DEK International
Pictures are more communicative than words. Examining how this is incorporated in emerging assembly equipment software illustrates how task-based design will enable manufacturing businesses to achieve productivity and ROI improvements.
The latest generations of graphical interfaces for equipment control computers use task-based design, which sets out to improve the way users interact with technology. Examining how these principles are incorporated in emerging assembly equipment illustrates how task-based design will enable manufacturing businesses to achieve ongoing productivity improvements and gain extra value from their investment in capital equipment.
From Text to 3D Graphics
Pictures are more communicative than words. This notion has guided the evolution of computer user interfaces since the 1960s, when researchers began experimenting with windows, icons, menus, and pointers (WIMP) to enhance the usability of personal computers.
Until the arrival of Windows-based applications, users of PC-controlled machines typically had to contend with an interface that was at best a hybrid of these two approaches. Manufacturing veterans will remember using features of DOS text-mode such as the scroll-bar and pointer to navigate text-based lists and menus to set up machines on the factory floor and adjust their operating parameters. These were mostly non-intuitive, and required extensive introductory training by suppliers’ engineers before they could be used in high-volume manufacturing. In operation, the equipment could be complicated, imposing lengthy setup procedures as expensively trained operators scrolled through numerous screens and levels of options. Moreover, recovery from errors would demand considerable knowledge and patience.
The arrival of features such as drop-down menus and rendering of detailed pictures and graphics as part of Windows-style user interfaces made industrial equipment easier to learn and use. These allow operators to make multiple setup adjustments quickly, and verify parameters and data while the machine is operating. Moreover, navigation of these features is more intuitive within a Windows environment than when using a text user interface (TUI). The fact that features and capabilities can be made discoverable – by probing menus and features such as the right-hand mouse button – helps users recall functions that are used less frequently. It also can serve to shorten initial training and familiarization.
However, human-factors experts studying interactions with computers and the complex tasks today’s users seek to accomplish have identified numerous weaknesses with user interfaces based on the first-generation WIMP principles. Some avenues of modern research include measures to help users respond to situations not previously encountered, as well as better ways to help form a mental picture of the equipment being used and visualize how to achieve required results.
Almost any computer-based profession or industry will value improvements in this area. Competitive pressures are such that users must acquire adequate proficiency and become fully productive quickly, even as the power and functionality of the tools themselves continue increasing.
The latest task-based user interfaces provide a solution to these challenges, and are the product of research into learning and decision-making processes as well as ergonomics, with the goal of making high-tech equipment easier to use and therefore more accessible to a larger proportion of the world’s population.
Task-based design shifts the responsibility for selecting the required tools and features from the user to the machine itself, leveraging the availability of multi-Ghz desktop processing power and cheap, plentiful memory. To send a digital image to a colleague, for example, the latest desktop tools help the user to locate the file and take responsibility for attachment and send prep. This saves the user from having to identify the correct application and then locating and attaching the file to send. This can speed up actions and empower users who may have no experience of e-mail or the Internet to access the benefits that come from being able to share files electronically. In an office context, benefits will include increased productivity and the ability to perform tasks of a higher value.
On the Factory Floor
In a manufacturing context, task-based user interfaces can address the challenges that many operators must overcome to understand more clearly the equipment and processes being used than has been possible with conventional Windows-style GUIs. Combined with 3D graphics showing how to set up equipment and adjust subsystems, or to illustrate the origin of an error condition, these interfaces can help users gain an instinctive understanding of the equipment. This opens the way for companies to operate more cost-effectively and competitively by enabling operators to become productive more quickly and perform tasks that previously may have required intervention by more experienced staff.
Figure 1. Task-based machine setup.
Menu-based software presenting the entire setup procedure for a screen printer, for example, helps users understand how and why each subsystem must be adjusted, and to verify that all setup tasks have been accomplished (Figure 1). By following automated guidance, operators can save errors, ensure faster setup, and achieve a first-time print even when setting up relatively complex tasks such as printing for BGAs or CSPs. Implicit in the task-based emphasis of these new interfaces, multi-window displays help the user to view any adjustments being made – or alarm signals received – in a whole-machine context.
Figure 2. 3D graphical instructions.
While the machine is operating, task-based user interface design allows information regarding replenishment levels of consumables such as solder paste, understencil cleaning paper, and solvent to be displayed graphically and updated in real time. This allows the user to identify the optimum point in time to replenish any or all reservoirs, minimizing disruptions to production. Moreover, the replenishment task is guided by the task-based software. Initiating the task in software takes the operator through the process step by step, illustrating instructions with 3D images and providing the user with a clear view of subsequent actions required to complete the task (Figure 2).
Similarly, the emerging generations of task-based user interfaces will allow operators to recover machines from serious exception conditions even after relatively little training. Task-based user interfaces take advantage of graphical capabilities embedded in the latest operating systems to present multiple 3D images that illustrate the nature of the problem, pinpoint its origin, and communicate the steps necessary to restore normal operation. Companies can quickly and economically train new operators to manage machines independently as a result.
These capabilities contrast sharply with the often cryptic error messages typical of text-mode and even Windows-based interfaces. This is important to all manufacturing businesses, as equipment and processes continue to become more complex while unrelenting pressure on prices demands greater productivity from each individual member of the workforce.
By also leveraging networking capabilities native to modern operating systems, the latest generations of machine-control software are enabling e-printing – as the first of an emerging generation of e-machines – to call up additional knowledge stored remotely, either from the company’s own enterprise network or by linking into the equipment supplier’s own servers, to gain access to value-added support services. These services also are evolving to provide access to step-by-step how-to guides, multimedia demonstrations, up-to-date component drawings, and customer-specific historical information such as software version numbers and machine upgrade status.
Conclusion
The latest task-based user interface designs combine increased on-board intelligence and the power of broadband Internet communications to effectively accelerate production, reduce training overheads, minimize decision-making time, and increase flexibility and productivity for manufacturers in all global territories.
Simon Langham, software manager, DEK International, may be contacted at +44 1305 208399; slangham@dek.com.
DfA Saves Time and Product Cost
Design for assembly (DfA) is one of three components of design for manufacturability (DfM), which encompasses all manufacturing tasks. The other two components in the triad are design for fabrication (DfF) and design for test (DfT).
The DfA concept takes into account issues that circuit, PCB, and mechanical designers might not consider during the design of their specialized area. Applying the concept to the various design competency groups, those designers begin thinking beyond their own area and consider ease of assembly when finalizing designs.
For example, fewer overall parts count generally means easier assembly. The circuit designer, applying DfA thinking, can look at the final schematic with an eye on consolidating parts, using packaged parts instead of discretes, and even considering if any re-design efforts would be worth the cost to improve DfA.
The PCB designer adopting DfA principles will avoid crowding components such that they become more difficult to insert. Component choices can also be made, choosing a package that is easier to grasp or more compatible with existing automated assembly tools. Other considerations could be mounting hole location, ground pad placements, or even altering board geometry to make final assembly into the cabinet easier.
The full set of DfA criteria can be represented in terms of rules, which can then be applied at all design levels. Some rules are constant, and some vary based on the needs of the particular product being designed.
There are several obvious advantages to deploying DfA techniques on new product designs. The most apparent is the decrease in assembly time, and thus lower overall product cost. Another advantage is a lower parts count, further reducing costs. There are also some less-obvious benefits to DfA. The lower parts count also means decreased warehouse costs. Fewer parts also equate to lower warranty costs.
DfA is a cost- and time-saving concept. When coupled into the entire DfM working environment, it helps realize significant savings.
Mark Forbes, Mentor Graphics Corp., may be contacted at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Rd., Wilsonville, Ore. 97070.