Advancing the practice of proactive ergonomics by innovating tools and applications using digital human modeling

该研究计划的目的是开发创新的工具和应用程序，以推进主动人体工程学的实践。配备了这些工具和应用程序，人体工学家和健康与安全专业人员将能够识别和消除已知会导致伤害的工作场所危险，然后再伤害工人。改进的工具，应用积极的人体工程学将帮助这些专业人员修补工作环境的工作加拿大的，大大减少了昂贵的，削弱了工伤的数量。减少工伤对于确保加拿大劳动力保持活力和可持续性非常重要，同时也可以减少与工伤相关的费用的财务负担，提高加拿大公司的底线。 生成和发展工具以推进主动人体工程学，需要能够预测或模拟工人在工作场所的表现。这些预测或模拟可以使用数字人体建模（DHM）来实现。视频游戏是DHM在行动中的一个流行的例子，其中虚拟人被编程来模拟著名运动员或知名人士的动作和行为。应用于人体工程学，DHM允许健康和安全专业人员主动检测有害或危险的人体工程学风险，通过评估模拟工人的表现，在实际员工过度暴露之前。然而，为此目的使用数字人体模型的能力取决于它们模拟工人如何移动以及他们如何施加力量来完成工作任务，特别是关于他们的能力（例如力量或平衡）。这项研究计划将提高我们预测工人能力的能力，并在这种能力的背景下，我们将产生不同的方法来估计工人如何施加力量（多少和方向）来完成任务目标。知识渊博、训练有素的人体工程学家、工业工程师和健康与安全专业人员，配备有效的主动人体工程学工具，将对减少加拿大工伤人数产生直接影响。

The purpose of this research program is to develop innovative tools and applications to advance the practice of proactive ergonomics. Equipped with these tools and applications, ergonomists and health and safety professionals will be able to recognize and eliminate workplace hazards that are known to cause injury, before a worker becomes injured. Improved tools to apply proactive ergonomics will help these professionals mend the working environment for working Canadian's, dramatically reducing the number of costly, debilitating work-related injuries. A reduction in work-related injuries is important to ensure the Canadian workforce remains vibrant and sustainable, but also to reduce the financial burden of injury related costs, improving the bottom line for Canadian companies. Generating and evolving tools to advance proactive ergonomics requires the ability to predict or simulate how a worker might perform in their workplace. These predictions or simulations can be achieved using digital human modeling (DHM). Video gaming is a popular example of DHM in action, where virtual humans are programmed to simulate the movements and actions of famous athletes or prominent individuals. Applied to ergonomics, DHM allows health and safety professionals to proactively detect harmful or hazardous ergonomic risks, by assessing the performance of a simulated worker, before actual employees are unduly exposed. However, the ability to use digital human models for this purpose depends on how well they simulate how workers will move and how they will apply forces to complete a job task, particularly with respect to their capacity (strength or balance for example). This research program will improve our ability to predict a workers capacity, and in the context of that capacity, we will generate distinct methods to estimate how workers apply forces (both how much and in what direction) to complete task objectives. Knowledgeable, well trained ergonomists, industrial engineers and health and safety professionals, equipped with effective proactive ergonomics tools will have a direct impact on reducing the number of workplace injuries in Canada.