AEN-PRO: Agent-based simulation tool for performance and working conditions assessment in production systems using workers’ margins of manoeuver

Abstract

During the last eighty years, new work philosophies has been introduced and technological advancement changed radically the way of work, making it more reactive, agile but complex as well. As a result, classical approaches for production system design may no longer be sufficient to ensure productivity and safety of industrial systems. In the domain of occupational diseases, adopting a pure biomechanical approach, consisting in ensuring the non-violation of workers’ biomechanical limits at each workstation is proved to be uncomplete. Beside biomechanical risk factors, psychosocial risk factors, which are strongly linked to the dynamic of the physical and informational flows, may contribute to the genesis of Musculoskeletal Disorders. By granting a certain workers’ margins of manoeuver, these risk factors can be limited. This article introduces AEN-PRO, a simulation tool for investigating the impact of physical flow on the production system and particularly workers, to assess their margins of manoeuver and to ensure safer and productive systems.