Group Characteristics and Task Accuracy in Distributed Remote User Controlled Manufacturing as Collaborative Environment

Abstract

Collaborative environments today are very successful when used in multiplayer games and for meetings organizing, which gives an idea to explore its potentials in remotely controlled decentralized manufacturing. This survey is based on the experiment that involved 34 small collaborative groups including 68 students in Serbia, that have used the interface for remote collaborative control of manufacturing systems to control of CNC machine located in Portugal. Our previous surveys have shown that group work consumes less time than individual work in most working options. This paper examines influence of homogeneity of the groups. Results of statistical examination show that percentages of errors are significantly or highly significantly higher in homogeneous compared to a non-homogeneous groups. Therefore, it could be recommended to form heterogeneous groups when remotely controlling decentralized manufacturing processes.