Ergonomic Applications and Process for Freightliner's New Medium Duty Truck: Business Class M2

Sound Ergonomics is an important attribute and differentiator among trucks, because professional truck drivers spend many hours of their work time on the road driving. Ergonomics affects areas of driver safety, comfort, accommodation and performance. The purpose of this paper is to showcase the ergonomic principles, tools and process that were applied throughout the development cycle of Freightliner's new Medium Duty Truck: Business Class M2. An important centerpiece of the ergonomic process at Freightliner is RAMSIS, a 3-D Digital Human Modeling software. It allows effective evaluation of ergonomic issues in the CAD environment early on in the development cycle, thus reducing the risk of expensive re-designs at later stages in the vehicle development process. Several examples with RAMSIS will highlight the benefits of applying 3-D human modeling to the design process. Factors such as secular trend, demographics and changes in anthropometrics were taken into account to develop optimized ergonomics in the Business Class M2 Truck.