A major focus of work at Daimler’s Health & Safety department involves the ergonomic optimization of all production workstations. To this end, a preventive “Ergonomic Work System Assessment” is carried out at all production facilities in the early stages of planning for new vehicle generations.

It’s a job no one would envy: A worker repeatedly extends his upper body deep into a vehicle’s bodyshell, where he stretches his arm to fasten a screw in a spot extremely difficult to access, and which he can also hardly see. If this man were made of flesh and blood, everyone would assume that he suffers from back and wrist problems. The assembly worker here is only a virtual onscreen figure, however – a type of “electronic dummy,” if you will. Guaranteed to be insensitive to pain, he nevertheless shows discomfort, as his back, neck, wrists, or shoulders light up red whenever his movements lead to stresses that exceed preprogrammed values. Such red flashes indicate that something urgently needs to be done to improve the simulated workstation.

In the digital factory

The electronic dummy in the so-called digital factory at Mercedes-Benz in Sindelfingen, Germany, is only one of several tools that enable specialists to quickly identify and eliminate ergonomic risks for workers, especially those in assembly units. Planning engineers are now able to simulate and examine step-by-step the production process for a new model years before it rolls off the line for the first time. In some cases, they determine that certain process steps should be modified or even eliminated due to ergonomic considerations, meaning they present a danger to employees. “We utilize a strong preventive approach – we don’t wait for an orthopedist to tell us one of our people has a serious health problem,” says Dr. Ralf Franke, head of the Health & Safety (H&S) department at Daimler.

H&S is responsible for all health management functions at the Group, with services ranging from medical care and consulting on social welfare issues to employee health improvement and occupational safety programs. Ergonomics, which involves keeping the physical strain associated with work processes to a minimum, is becoming increasingly important at H&S. “We work closely here with developers and planners in order to incorporate ergonomic aspects as early as the design phase of a new vehicle,” Franke explains. In 2007 alone, the department carefully examined the ergonomic properties of more than 500 workstations and the processes they’re used for.