Virtual Reality and Digital Human Modeling for the Physical Ergonomic Analysis in Product Development in Industry: A Systematic Review

The efficacy of the product development process is measured by the ability to launch a project with product and production process specifications that could guarantee that the manufacturing can produce it with the least impact. If a problem is detected late, they bring consequences beyond the high cost of the solution, if related to physical ergonomics, which will influence the well-being of operators, productivity, and quality. Virtual Reality (VR) and Digital Human Modeling (DHM) are ones of the enabling technologies of Industry 4.0 and has already been applied on a large scale in industries such as automotive, construction, and aeronautics. However, even though the huge applications, these technologies are not yet applied by these industries for the analysis of physical ergonomics during product development phases. This study aims to characterize the state of the art and technology about the application of Virtual Reality and Digital Human Modeling for the physical ergonomics analysis in the during product development phases in the industry through a systematic review of the literature and patents. In patent documents recovery, we used Derwent Innovation database. The research is based on searching the selected terms in the title, summary, and claims of the documents through a search strategy containing IPC code and keywords. In articles recovery, we searched ScienceDirect, Springer, and IEEExplore databases for scientific publications. The search resulted in 311 patents documents and 16 articles in the scientific database. This study analyzed the patents to map out the technological progress in this area, where we found in the charts and data an increasing number of publications per year and a spread application with a considerable number of new technologies presented in these recent patents. The literature review indicated that Virtual Reality technology complements the Digital Human Modeling during physical ergonomics analysis for manufacturing process already designed. The majority of research on the use of VR and DHM technologies for physical ergonomics analysis focus on the automotive industry and the ergonomic assessment of workstations and current processes. Further research is needed to investigate how Virtual Reality and Digital Human Modeling might assist in the understanding of physical ergonomics in certain tasks throughout the product development process, such as the simulation of worker posture or effort when assembling parts.

Prototyping Human-Centered Products in the Age of Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 promises better control of the overall product development process; however, there is a lack of computational frameworks that can inject human factors engineering principles early in design. This shortage is particularly crucial for prototyping of human-centered products where the stakes are high. Thus, a smooth Industry 4.0 transformation requires bringing computational ergonomics into the loop, specifically to address the needs in the digitized prototyping process. In this paper, a computational prototyping approach is explored that focuses on various fidelity levels and different human-product interaction levels when conducting ergonomics assessments. Three computational prototyping strategies were explored, including (1) a digital sketchpad based tool, (2) computer-aided design and digital human modeling based approach, and (3) a combination of computer-aided design, digital human modeling, and surrogate modeling. These strategies are applied to six case studies to perform various ergonomics assessments (reach, vision, and lower-back). It is suggest that designers must determine which fidelity level prototype to employ after applying a trade-off study between the accuracy of the ergonomics outcomes and the available resources. Understanding the intricacies between the fidelity level, type of ergonomic assessment, and human-product interaction level helps designers in getting one step closer to digitizing the human-centered prototyping in meeting Industry 4.0 objectives.

Optimizing Ergonomics and Productivity by Connecting Digital Human Modeling and Production Flow Simulation Software

Simulation software is used in the production development process to simulate production and predict behaviors, calculate times, and plan production in advance. Digital human modeling (DHM) software is used to simulate humans working in production and assess whether workstation designs offer appropriate ergonomic conditions for the workers. However, these human simulations are usually carried out by human factors engineers or ergonomists, whereas the production simulations are carried out by production engineers. Lack of integration of these two simulations can lead to suboptimal solutions when the factory is not optimized to improve both productivity and ergonomics. To tackle this problem, a platform has been developed that connects production flow simulation software data and DHM software data and integrates them in a generic software for data treatment and visualization. Production flow simulation software data and DHM software data are organized in a hierarchical structure that allows synchronization between the production data and the ergonomic data on the target simulation software. The platform is generic and can be connected to any production flow simulation software and any DHM software by creating specific links for each software. The platform requires only the models of the production line, workstations, and tasks in order to perform the simulations in the target simulation software and collect the simulation results to present the results to the user of the platform.