The effect of manikin anthropometrics and posturing guidelines on proactive ergonomic assessments using digital human models

Preliminary investigations of the validity of manual digital human model (DHM) manipulations, to accurately reproduce real worker postures, have identified a potential need to refine the manual posturing strategies used by ergonomists when performing proactive virtual ergonomics assessments. This study investigated the effect of altering manikin anthropometrics and implementing posturing guidelines when using DHMs for this purpose. Twelve automotive assembly-line tasks were used to assess the differences between real worker postures, captured via motion capture techniques, and postures obtained from manually manipulated DHMs scaled to either an average female DHM or the real worker average height. Ergonomists performed the DHM assessments using a set of five postural guidelines. Using the postural guidelines generally resulted in more conservative estimates and, in some tasks, improved accuracy across kinetic (% capable, total solved force, L5-S1 compression force, and resultant shoulder torque) and kinem...