Manual assembly is a time and cost consuming phase of production. It is crucial to design the assembly process so that overall system efficiency, quality output and human well-being meet desired levels. Since manual assembly involve humans, one support in the production design process is to use digital human modelling (DHM) tools to model and assess different design scenarios prior to the actual production process. In the traditional way, various CAD tools are used by engineers to model the production layout and the workstations. Then, these models typically are imported into a DHM tool to simulate human work, and to apply ergonomic evaluation methods on the simulated work tasks. This work, supported by CAD and DHM, can be a time consuming and iterative process as precise information and measurements of the actual assembly environment are needed, e.g. related to actual geometries of factory premises or of facilities surrounding the workstations. However, introducing point cloud scanning technology can provide the user with a more correct and realistic virtual representation of the environment, which allows for a faster and more precise design process.The aim of this paper is to present the developments and capabilities of the DHM tool IPS IMMA (Intelligently Moving Manikins) in an assembly process and in a virtual environment provided by point cloud scanning.