Whether a team keeps pace with the cycle, whether quality comes without rework, and whether people stay healthy in the long run is decided at the workstation every day. When grasping distances are short, working heights fit, and postures stay neutral, complaints and errors go down and the cycle gains reserve. Just a few centimeters in material presentation, or 10–20 mm in the height of a fixture, add up noticeably over many shifts and lines.
You don't need a theoretical treatise for this. You need sound principles, clear metrics, and an approach that works on the shopfloor. This is where VR-based planning comes in: you check layout, grasping paths, and postures before anything is rebuilt, compare variants early, and back up decisions with your team.
Ergonomic workstation design reduces physical strain, stabilizes cycle time, and lowers quality costs. People who don't work in awkward postures tire less over a shift. Grasping and search times shrink, and the first pass yield rises. You can measure this in shorter grasping paths per cycle, more neutral arm and hand postures, and shorter distances between material and the point of work. The outcome is fewer sick days and more robust processes.
The basic principles are well known:
Guide values provide orientation, for example an elbow angle of about 90–120 degrees, a primary reach of about 20–40 cm in front of the body, and, for heavy work, a working height roughly 20–40 cm below elbow height. These are not rigid rules. As target ranges, though, they help structure decisions and make variants comparable.
It starts with a clean as-is assessment on the shopfloor. You observe the cycle sequence, capture critical postures and paths on video, and record the geometry with a quick 3D model or a scan. From this you derive target ranges, for example at least 80 percent of grasps in the primary zone, a defined number of meters by which grasping paths per cycle should get shorter, or a cycle reserve of a few percentage points.
Next, you develop two or three realistic variants that pull different levers: working height, grasping zones, fixture rotation, container angle, or material flow. Each variant is tested in the workflow, assessed, and discussed with assembly, logistics, and HSE (health, safety, and environment). The best solution goes into a pilot. After a few weeks you measure again and turn the result into the standard.
Typical problems can be solved with a few well-founded measures:
Key metrics are the reach per grasp in centimeters, the total grasping path per cycle in meters, arm and trunk bending angles in degrees, and grasp frequency. Add lifting and carrying loads with their mass and frequency, walking and search times in seconds, and cycle time. You also check collision clearance and visibility as clear yes/no criteria.
For many workstations, this target works well: at least four out of five grasps fall within the primary zone, the elbow angle stays in the neutral range around 90–120 degrees, grasping paths get noticeably shorter, and cycle time gains measurable seconds. Adjustment ranges should cover the 5th to 95th percentile so that both short and tall employees can work safely without extra effort.
RULA (Rapid Upper Limb Assessment) rates postures of the upper limbs and helps prioritize risks. EAWS (Ergonomic Assessment Worksheet) covers whole-body strain in a more structured way. REFA and MTM (Methods-Time Measurement) let you analyze times, work elements, and movements and estimate how a change affects the cycle. These methods provide orientation and make workstations comparable. They do not replace clinical assessments or legal advice. In practice, you combine the scores with time and quality data and check the effect in realistic workflows, ideally first in the virtual replica of the workstation and then at the pilot station.
Halocline is the planning platform for production layouts and workstations. You build workstations and shopfloor layouts directly in 3D, on the desktop or in VR, with no training required. You assemble variants from library elements and record distances with dimensions.
Grasping areas for different body heights: Grasping area avatars show the optimal and maximum grasping area as well as the working planes. You set gender and body height, and Halocline calculates the values according to DIN 33402-2 and DIN EN ISO 14738. If you work to other guidelines, you enter the dimensions yourself. This lets you check the same workstation for short and tall employees.
Run through and analyze processes: You perform the workflow yourself in VR and record it. The ergonomics analysis based on the key indicator method then marks in yellow or red which object movements are potentially or critically unergonomic, based on weight, distance, lifting distance, and duration. Paths become visible in the spaghetti diagram, and the collision check shows where material presentation gets in the way. Because you perform the workflow yourself, ergonomics and efficiency data are captured in a single pass, based on your own body height.
Connection to MTM and EAWS: With the MTMmotion export, you transfer recorded processes directly into MTM analyses. For assessments based on MTM-UAS and EAWS, layout data from Halocline can be reused in the ema Work Designer by imk.
Decisions become traceable because screenshots, measurements, and variants sit side by side and the team follows the walkthrough: one person walks through the model in VR while the others watch in spectator mode on screen. Albert Franz, Industrial Engineer at Siemens in Karlsruhe: "Workstation design is now four times faster for us. At the same time, we were able to involve employees early in the planning process and create solutions that fit precisely."
Assembly workstation: The starting point is a station with a work surface that is too high and parts that are too far away. If you lower the working height by 120 mm and move the frequently used parts to about 30 cm away, the grasping path per cycle gets shorter by around 1.4 m. Cycle time drops by several seconds, and the posture score improves significantly.
Picking station: The containers sit flat and too far back. If you tilt them by 25 degrees and bring the front edge to about 350 mm away, search time drops noticeably and trunk bending decreases by a double-digit number of degrees.
Material presentation: A clear U-layout with a defined sequence and sufficient aisle width allows collision-free movement and shortens walking times considerably. All of this shows up in the model before a single real shelf is rebuilt.
Results like these belong in a measurement log: date, variant, metrics such as grasping path, cycle time, and posture values, and the documented decision.
Want to check your workstation before you rebuild? Get started for free with Halocline Free and build your first workstation in 3D. For the ergonomics check and process analysis, get in touch and we'll show you the right scope.
