Design method for multi-user workstations utilizing anthropometry and preference data Joseph M. Mahoney a, * , Nicolas A. Kurczewski b , Erick W. Froede b a Engineering Science and Mechanics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA b Mechanical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA article info Article history: Received 14 November 2013 Accepted 2 July 2014 Available online xxx Keywords: Workstation design parameters Group interaction Engineering anthropometry abstract Past efforts have been made to design single-user workstations to accommodate users' anthropometric and preference distributions. However, there is a lack of methods for designing workstations for group interaction. This paper introduces a method for sizing workstations to allow for a personal work area for each user and a shared space for adjacent users. We first create a virtual population with the same anthropometric and preference distributions as an intended demographic of college-aged students. Members of the virtual population are randomly paired to test if their extended reaches overlap but their normal reaches do not. This process is repeated in a Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the total per- centage of groups in the population that will be accommodated for a workstation size. We apply our method to two test cases: in the first, we size polygonal workstations for two populations and, in the second, we dimension circular workstations for different group sizes. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd and The Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The co-location of team members has been shown to increase teamwork quality and an effectively-designed workstation im- proves a team's productivity (Hoegl and Proserpio, 2004). Methods that utilize anthropometric data to size workstations have been developed for individual accommodation (Das and Grady, 1983a; Das and Sengupta, 1996; Pheasant, 1987; Sengupta and Das, 1997) However, methods are lacking for sizing workstations with respect to group accommodation and interaction. Previous studies have considered anthropometric quantities in the design of single-user workstations (Das and Grady, 1983a; Pheasant, 1987; Das and Sengupta, 1996; Sengupta and Das, 1997). The arm length and stature of female populations have been used to determine the optimal placement and sizing of cashier stations (Das and Sengupta, 1996) and nurse stations (Pheasant, 1987). Additionally, manikin-based approaches have been used to simulate user behavior at single-user workstations (Sengupta and Das, 1997). Digital human models have been employed to design and visualize workstations and other products tailored to targeted population segments (HFES 300 Committee et al., 2004; Jung et al., 2009). Despite these numerous methods for sizing workstations, they all considered only the physical dimensions of a user to determine how far they can comfortably reach and did not account for the user's preference. Wang highlighted user interaction with objects on a planar, static workspace and provided the fundamental research for “inner boundaries” (Wang, 1999). The inner boundary better defined the space needed by a seated user. It has been demonstrated that a user's reaching behavior is affected by an object's distance and weight (Choi and Mark, 2004). These two ideas are synthesized in the investigation of comfortable tabletop reach zones by Toney and Thomas (Toney and Thomas, 2006). No application of these findings has been used in conjunction with an anthropometric model to drive workstation design, although it has been cited as an idea for further investigation (Toney and Thomas, 2006). Designing a workstation for a group is more complicated than for an individual: consideration must be given to both a user's personal space and the shared space between users (Scott et al., 2003; Sulaiman Kharrufa and Olivier, 2010; Tang, 1991). For example, each user needs space for their personal laptop and notebook, but also needs to be able to share reference manuals or rapid prototypes with other group members. Scott observed that “territories” d personal, group, and storage d arise naturally in a collaborative workspace setting (Scott, 2003; Scott et al., 2004). It is suggested that these emergent territories be used as guidelines in workstation design (Sulaiman Kharrufa and Olivier, 2010). These * Corresponding author. Present address: 225 Gaige Building, The Pennsylvania State University Berks, Reading, PA 19610, USA. Tel.: þ1 610 396 6459. E-mail address: jmm694@psu.edu (J.M. Mahoney). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Applied Ergonomics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apergo http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2014.07.003 0003-6870/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd and The Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved. Applied Ergonomics xxx (2014) 1e7 Please cite this article in press as: Mahoney, J.M., et al., Design method for multi-user workstations utilizing anthropometry and preference data, Applied Ergonomics (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2014.07.003