Producing and Consuming Instructional Material in Manufacturing Contexts: Evaluation of an AR-based Cyber-Physical Production System for Supporting Knowledge and Expertise Sharing

Fast-paced knowledge and expertise sharing (KES) is a typical demand in contemporary workplaces due to dynamic markets and ever-changing work practices. Past and current computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) research has long been investigating how computer technologies can support people with KES. Recent claims have asserted that augmented reality- (AR-)based cyber-physical production systems (CPPS) are poised to bring significant changes in the ways that KES unfolds in manufacturing contexts. This paper scrutinises such claims by implementing a short-term evaluation of an AR-based CPPS and assessing how it can potentially support (1) the generation of AR content by experienced production workers and (2) the visualisation and processing of such content by novice workers. We, therefore, contribute a user study to the CSCW community that sheds light on the use of a particular type of AR-based CPPS for KES in industrial contexts.?