Four years ago, Ford and General Motors agreed to cooperate in the development of intelligent assist devices (IADs) at Northwestern University, UC-Berkeley, and the Department of Energy lab in Oakridge, TN. In early 2002, that research paid off, as an IAD at Ford's Michigan truck body plant in Wayne, MI came online, helping workers install heavy instrument panels more ergonomically and with great precision.

"It couples the best of a human being—three-dimensional vision and intelligence—with the best of a machine—strength and precision," says Tom Pearson, a staff technical specialist at Ford. Pearson described the accomplishment at the National Robot Safety Conference recently in Ypsilanti, MI.

Previous IAD models were often set aside because workers complained that the tools actually slowed them down. The new generation is much faster: "You can't run with the darn thing, but we've permitted the acceleration to match virtually the full speed of a human," Pearson says. The new IADs are also much simpler to use, which speeds worker training.

Ford is not alone in its use of IADs, which are available from a number of companies including Ingersoll-Rand, Gorbel, Cobotics, and Fanuc. Pearson expects the list to grow. "I would expect all suppliers to have these in their sales literature within a few years," he says. "The opportunities from a quality standpoint are tremendous."