Assisted mails sorting and forwarding stands: performance analysis and ergonomic assessment

Abstract

Industrial automation to-day covers broader areas, as robotic equipment provides technically sound solutions to remove on-process workers once task-cycle are properly assessed. Return on investment, however, remains sometimes open point and this is central question when competition is particularly strong. The postal services face all over the world drastic changes due to new means (information and communication technology) and business options (removal of governmental restriction on utilities), with enhanced attention on effectiveness by lean work-organisation, namely, mixed settings, where human operators are primary resource within sophisticated automatic processing lines. This is not without drawbacks, with implications on the plant ergonomics, and throughout productivity checks need be ran for actual operation lay-outs. The paper tackles such problems, exploiting simulation tools to accomplish beforehand analyses by virtual testing, in terms of resource allocation, process planning and labour protection.