To reduce training time and improve worker safety in the high-risk environment of industrial manufacturing, research consultants from Tobii Pro Insight conducted an eye-tracking study at the metal foundry of H&H Castings, a supplier of aluminum castings. The attention-based study revealed insights that will contribute to the quicker onboarding of new workers, new efficiencies in the foundry’s operations, new training guidelines, and the reduced risk of accidents.
H&H Castings trains a new employee or temp worker in the melt department twice a month on average as it’s one of the most demanding and volatile positions in the factory. The average training time is one full week. “We hope the eye-tracking video will save us two days per employee. Ideally, this would save us 400 hours of training time per year in that department,” says Jacob Hammill, system manager of H&H Castings.
The workers recruited to participate in the qualitative study wore eye-tracking glasses for 15 to 30 minutes as they completed their tasks in the foundry. The study found that the work requires an extreme amount of concentration and focus—any sudden break in that concentration could have a disastrous effect on how workers pour liquid metal into casting molds. The eye trackers provided a close-up supervision of how this process was conducted through the eyes of experienced workers.
Video taken now can be shown to trainees for the purpose of instruction, and the analysis of the attention data revealed steps that can be taken to make the metal pouring process safer and more efficient.
With this technology, missed steps and distractions are identified by knowing exactly where a worker is focusing his or her attention in order to determine where human errors are occurring, as well as the underlying factors that cause them. By viewing the work conditions through a worker’s eyes and evaluating protocols for handling dangerous equipment, businesses can bridge the perception gap between managers and workers to help create a safer environment.
For more information, visit: www.tobii.com.
