Development a Question Answering System Considering Uncertainty Using a Language Platform in the Assembly Line

Over the last years, manufacturing companies have experienced an increasing demand for more complex products with an increasing amount of product variants. The high complexity and variant in the manufacturing line bring the need for more expertise level for operators. For making sure that the operator can be adapted to this need, adequate and timely training and guidelines and real-time support of workers in manufacturing area is required. For having a better manufacturing process, operators should receive appropriate and updated process and safety training and guidelines to decrease the risk.
So, one of the main challenges in the smart industry is providing smart guideline and support for the operators based on their need. Having the smart assistance systems in the manufacturing environment can lead to higher quality and more efficiency. One way to provide these support can be using the question answering system. A QA system is a system that gives appropriate answers to questions expressed in natural languages. The advantage of QA systems in the assembly line is that operators have the luxury of asking queries in natural language and also get a precise answer instead of just displaying a list of links to documents that may or may not be relevant or waiting for a long time for the supervisors .

Most studies in the QA system concern the open domain. The restricted domains already available in the research are mainly related to medical care. Based on our knowledge, for the assembly domain, there are still gaps related to having a QA system for supporting the operators in the assembly line. The text-based operator support in the assembly domain is not widely explored in state-of-the-art.