Högskolan i Skövde

Bad worker health leads to an unnecessary increase of absent days and loss of money, particularly the more physically demanding jobs as in industry. This can be seen in both a broader perspective and also in the suffering of the individual. In order to stop this trend and lower the work injuries connected to bad ergonomics good, reliable, and preferably digital, methods have to be generated and evaluated.

The aim of this master’s thesis is to investigate how Digital Human Modelling (DHM) tools can beused to evaluate physical ergonomics by building a real-life workstation in the DHM tool IPS IMMA.

The workstation used here is based on a newly installed station at a large company placed in Skövde. This station was developed in collaboration of both technical specialists but also ergonomist consulting from the company Feelgood. The goal has therefore been to examine where in the process a DHM tool could be used and if it would contribute to the process.

The methods chosen to investigate the use of DHM tools were to build a final model in IPS IMMA, which is based of four different versions of the workstation. By building four different versions of the workstation the process has simultaneously been analyzed and documented in order to compare the findings made in the program to the ones made in real life.

The results have also been made in combination to finding the opportunities, challenges, and disadvantages with using DHM tools. The needed improvements within the DHM field have also been noted and discussed.