Digital workstation design only becomes truly tangible when you walk through it in VR. Many shopfloor problems arise because distances, grip heights, or handovers are misjudged, and they often only come to light late. If you design workstations in VR, you spot these points early, assess ergonomics and workflows realistically, and make sound decisions before anything is built.
In VR, you experience scale, grasping areas, and distances at 1:1. This clears up misunderstandings, because you perceive bottlenecks physically and check safety zones intuitively. Instead of looking at static plans, you see right away in the walkable model whether the operating height fits, whether routes are too long, or whether a pallet truck bumps into something.
Halocline, the planning platform for production layouts and workstations, combines this reality check with a lean start. You begin with no training required and without CAD data, use the library of tables, racks, machine placeholders, and containers, and refine the layout directly in VR or on the desktop. Iterations are fast because you can walk through and assess every change right away. The result is faster approvals and fewer expensive rebuilds. At Siemens in Karlsruhe, workstation design with Halocline became 4x faster.
An assembly scenario: The upper shelf is lowered by around 10 to 15 cm, the containers move into the primary grasping area, and the control panel comes within view and reach. Trunk flexion halves, shoulder angles become noticeably smaller, and cycle time gets shorter. Over the shift, this adds up to several hundred meters less walking, and handovers run more clearly and with fewer disruptions.
Ergonomics starts with traceable measuring points. In Halocline, grasping area avatars show the optimal and maximum grasping area and the working planes for the gender and body height you set, calculated according to DIN 33402-2 and DIN EN ISO 14738. This lets you check grip heights, grasping depths, and lines of sight for different body heights. If you run through the workflow in VR and record it, the ergonomics analysis based on the key indicator method marks potentially and critically unergonomic object movements in yellow and red. You check target values such as grip heights of about 900 to 1,100 mm for frequent tasks or trunk flexion below 20 degrees directly at the virtual workstation. This makes ergonomic workstation design measurable and comparable instead of relying on gut feeling.
At the same time, you assess the workflows. The recording shows walking routes in the spaghetti diagram and provides routes and process times that you compare with the takt. Bottlenecks show up as waiting time at handovers or as grasping paths that are too long, and the collision check makes conflicts with traffic routes visible in the model.
A scenario in numbers: Grasping paths drop from 1.8 to 1.1 m per cycle, and cycle time from 20 to 17 seconds. That's 15 percent less time per cycle and around 18 percent more throughput.
Combining ergonomics and workflow is particularly valuable. If you pull grab containers into the primary grasping area, posture risks go down, and often cycle time does too. If you consistently check safety distances, you avoid later replanning during setup. And if you improve visibility of displays, inspection and approval steps become less error-prone.
Good decisions need clear comparisons and a shared understanding. In Halocline, you create variants as copies, change one parameter at a time, such as rack position or working height, and walk through both versions one after the other. You base the decision on metrics such as grasping path per cycle, cycle time, required floor space, and compliance with safety distances, documented with screenshots and labels directly in the model. This keeps it clear why variant B is the better choice, even if the team changes or start-up comes later.
Collaboration happens where the insights arise. One person walks through the workstation in VR while industrial engineering, production, assembly, and occupational safety follow the walkthrough in spectator mode on screen and record notes with labels directly at the object. With Halocline Cloud, the team works on a shared data set. This saves loops, because questions about reach, collision risks, or handovers are no longer discussed in theory but resolved in the model.
Starting pragmatically means putting speed before detail. With the library, you quickly get to a reliable first model without CAD data and import CAD data later, selectively, for critical geometries. Even a two-week focus with clear goals can deliver reliable results: ergonomic improvements through adjusted grip heights, shorter routes in the shopfloor layout, and measured process times as the basis for approval.
You'll find more in-depth content on layout planning, process planning, and factory planning.
Want to check your next workstation in VR before it's built? Get started for free with Halocline Free and build your first workstation in 3D. For process analysis and the ergonomics check, get in touch and we'll show you the right scope.
