Development of Guidelines for the Ergonomic Evaluation of Human Work in Digital Factory Tools

For many years, the Association of German Engineers (VDI) has been issuing guidelines for simulating production and logistics systems as well as for Digital Factory tools. The target group encompasses experts from science, consulting institutions, industrial companies, interest groups and software houses. The guidelines represent the state of the art, but in individual cases can also be regarded as a preliminary stage of a standard. This opens up the possibility of publication without the topic already being viewed as capable of being standardized. An individual guideline can contain several guideline parts. In simulation software and Digital Factory tools, the working human is playing an increasing role. From this background, special guideline parts have already been published, which deal with the modeling of humans in production-logistic simulation and with ergonomic aspects in the Digital Factory. The last-mentioned guideline part deals with the work task and especially with related anthropometric and work-physiological aspects. A further guideline part is currently in the process of being published and regards the stresses and strains from the work environment. This guideline part with its close relation to Occupational Health and Safety is discussed in the following. It reveals that a large field of research and development issues still needs to be clarified in order to integrate these aspects into Digital Factory tools.