Computer simulation helps manufacturer improve safety, health
How do manufacturing companies know the best and safest way to design workplaces and assign tasks? Ideally, injuries and illnesses should be prevented, but historically companies have adjusted their workplace policies, practices and procedures after an injury or illness occurred.
In a NIOSH-supported study at the University of Iowa’s College of Public Health, researchers tested the role of computer simulation in promoting workers’ well-being by designing safer work. Known as digital human modeling, the simulation can help predict behavior and hazards and evaluate work design, without putting workers at risk or creating costly physical mock-ups.