A tool for early workstation design for small and medium enterprises evaluated in five cases

Five case studies on production line design were described to study the effect of an early design support tool. Based on these case studies, the simple, interactive, real-time, medium-fidelity, mixed-reality methodology was not only found to be a good early design stage evaluative tool for ergonomics and workflow, but a teaching tool as well. Despite some drawbacks, such as limited accuracy, mixed-reality simulation appears to be a good compromise between cost and fidelity, especially for small to mediumsized manufacturing enterprises, and gives important information on the layout focused on high efficiency and healthy postures. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc