Lean Ergonomics—are relevant synergies of digital human models and digital twins defining a new emerging subdiscipline?

Abstract

Manufacturing companies are facing new kinds of challenges. High cost and time pressure as well as the variety of product variants have added to supply chain issues due to unvorseeable major political, societal or natural events. This requires more than ever load optimization for all agents of a socio-technical system, to enable them to operate competitively and sustainably. Digital tools offer the possibility to proactively plan and analyze diverse processes. Recent developments indicat that human-centric (DHM) and process-centric (DT) tools are diverging rather than converging. The objective of this position paper is to analyze whether the vacuum created by human-centric and process-centric tools can be filled by the new subdiscipline of Lean Ergonomics (LE). LE is defined by synergies of production ergonomics and production management.Practical Relevance: By elaborating a methodological separation of Digital Twin (DT) and Digital Human Modeling (DHM), science and the economy shall be motivated to close the gap. Lean Ergonomics as an intersection of human-centered and system-centered engineering has the potential to incentivize companies to move towards sustainable ergonomics, as the company will directly benefit from this. Ergonomic methods and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) at the micro level of the individual workstation enable the ergonomic and psychophysiological assessment of the human being in digital and analogue form. This is mirrored on production-organizational methods and KPIs and thereby tested for dependencies and interactions, which enable a holistic optimization of the socio-technical system.