Purpose

Exoskeletons are mechanical structures that humans can wear to increase their strength and endurance. The purpose of this paper is to explain how exoskeletons can be used to improve performance across five phases of manufacturing.

Design/methodology/approach

Multivocal literature review, encompassing scientific literature and the grey literature of online reports, etc., to inform comprehensive, comparative and critical analyses of the potential of exoskeletons to improve manufacturing performance.

Findings

There are at least eight different types of exoskeletons that can be used to improve human strength and endurance in manual work during different phases of production. However, exoskeletons can have the unintended negative consequence of reducing human flexibility leading to new sources of musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) and accidents.

Research limitations/implications

Findings are relevant to function allocation research concerned with manual production work. In particular, exoskeletons could exacerbate the traditional trade-off between human flexibility and robot consistency by making human workers less flexible.

Practical implications

The introduction of exoskeletons requires careful health and safety planning if exoskeletons are to improve human strength and endurance without introducing new sources of MSD and accidents.

Originality/value

The originality of this paper is that it provides detailed information about a new manufacturing technology: exoskeletons. The value of this paper is that it provides information that is comprehensive, comparative and critical about exoskeletons as a potential alternative to robotics across five phases of manufacturing.

中文翻译：

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外骨骼：对提高生产性能的潜力的全面，比较和批判性分析

目的

外骨骼是人类可以穿戴以增强力量和耐力的机械结构。本文的目的是说明外骨骼如何在整个制造的五个阶段中用于改善性能。

设计/方法/方法

多声文学评论包括科学文献和在线报告的灰色文献等，以为外骨骼改善生产性能的潜力提供全面，比较和批判性的分析信息。

发现

在生产的不同阶段中，至少有八种不同类型的外骨骼可以用来提高人的力量和耐力。但是，外骨骼可能会产生意想不到的负面后果，即降低人类的灵活性，导致肌肉骨骼疾病（MSD）和事故的新来源。

研究局限/意义

这些发现与与手工生产工作有关的功能分配研究有关。特别是，外骨骼可能会通过降低人工灵活性来加剧人类灵活性与机器人一致性之间的传统权衡。

实际影响

如果要在不引入新的MSD和事故来源的情况下提高骨骼的强度和耐力，引进骨骼必须进行仔细的健康和安全计划。

创意/价值

本文的独创性在于它提供了有关新制造技术的详细信息：外骨骼。本文的价值在于，它提供了关于外骨骼的全面，比较和重要的信息，这是整个制造业五个阶段中机器人技术的潜在替代品。