MyAID: a Troubleshooting Application for Supporting Human Operators in Industrial Environment

Nowadays manufacturing systems are increasing in sophistication and complexity. In this scenario, human operators experience many diffculties to interact effciently with the machine. To tackle this problem, in this paper we present a novel interactive troubleshooting tool to be used in industrial environment. The application, called MyAID, relies on a hypermedia information system and aims at assisting shopoor workers in a factory to perform preventive and corrective machine maintenance. The main advantages of MyAID are the following. First, it overcomes limitations of conventional printed documentation. Second, it can be easily updated and adapted to other machines or uses, other than troubleshooting, since it enjoys a modular structure. Third, it can be connected directly to the control unit of the machine to read active alarms or verify whether the user is following correctly the troubleshooting procedure. Finally, the plan for usability assessment of the proposed application, which is organized in a preliminary heuristic evaluation according to Nielsen's heuristics and field tests with users, is introduced.