Högskolan i Skövde

Background: Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSD) are a disadvantage for companies both from the health and economics view. To reduce them, workstation ergonomics need to be accounted for. Previous ergonomics assessments involved spreadsheets filled and analysed by ergonomists and were regarded as time and resource-consuming, but recent improvements in virtual reality (VR), motion capture (MoCap) and digital human modeling (DHM) tools have open new options for analyses. Workstation redesign is one of the most common ways to improve working conditions, but a proper strategy that allows recording a sequence of actions using VR and assesses ergonomics is needed.

Limitations: The strategy was designed for Simumatik, software for virtual commissioning of workstations that wanted to also consolidate itself as a DHM tool. Simumatik and HTC Vive were used as MoCap system and Ergonomics in production platform (EPP) as the assessment tool.

Method: Literature review – prestudies and definition of use cases to test strategy and implement in it - requirements and wishes – strategy development – validation of use cases – evaluation.

Results: Compared to manual simulations performed manually in IPS IMMA where the user performs same tasks, the strategy output accuracy of 73.3%. However, there are some misinterpretations to fix within the performance of the strategy that would fairly raise it and make the study more realistic, concerning the use cases studied. These mistakes include the posture prediction of the neck and some minor issues with the performance of the use cases.

The number of resources vs. development was also studied and it showed that fixing the minor mistakes would raise accuracy close to 80% in the use cases. Adding a chest tracker could make it close to 100% compared to manual simulations in IPS IMMA.

Conclusions: The strategy steps were tested and concluded that worked fine, because of the accuracy reached. However, further development of all the parts concerning the strategy is needed. The aim reached was to achieve rough results that could democratize physical ergonomics assessments.