Digital Human Modeling in the Occupational Safety and Health Process: An Application in Manufacturing

OCCUPATIONAL APPLICATIONS

Digital human modeling and simulation software has been identified as an effective tool for evaluating work tasks and design alternatives without requiring the expense of physical mock-ups and production trials. Despite recent commercial advancements and a broader availability of digital human modeling platforms, the peer-reviewed scientific literature lacks sufficient demonstration of the application of digital human modeling software within an occupational safety and health process for mitigating exposures to physical risk factors in a real-work environment. We describe the implementation of a commercially available digital human modeling platform as a component of an occupational safety and health process in a manufacturing environment over the course of 1 year. Success stories, challenges, and practical recommendations are discussed.

Keywords:

• Modeling and simulation
• musculoskeletal disorders
• ergonomics tools and methods

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Co-author Victoria Roemig is an employee (senior application engineer) of SantosHuman Inc., the digital human modeling simulation and software company that is described in the manuscript. The authors are aware of no other potential conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Healthier Workforce Center of the Midwest (HWC) at the University of Iowa and the Deep South Center (DSC) for Occupational Health and Safety Education Research Center. The HWC and DSC are supported by Cooperative Agreements No. U19OH008868 and No. 2 T42 OH008436-13 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)/National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The contents are solely the responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of the CDC, NIOSH, HWC, or the DSC.