Conceptual qualitative system dynamics model for simulation of perceived workload, stress and performance from industrial work content

Tuan-anh Tran, Tamás Ruppert, György Eigner and János Abonyi

PLOS ONE, 2026, vol. 21, issue 5, 1-43

Abstract: Workload and psychological stress, which industrial workers perceived as stressors, affected their performance after they were exposed to the work content. A model simulating the stress-performance of a working individual is a beneficial tool for work task design and production management, enabling long-term Human Resource Development. Current models and concepts lack the construction of work-content components, human centricity, and the mechanism of stress transformation and effect; therefore not able to reproduce subtle human behaviors. This paper formulates this problem with a multi-disciplinary literature review, and proposes a conceptual qualitative system dynamics model to simulate the stress and performance of workers in a given work environment and conditions. By replicating the changes in work content with associated effects, human-centric solutions and interventions can be designed. A use case in the Vensim environment with different simulated scenarios returned behavior and tendency in the outputs that aligned with phenomena reported in relevant studies. The model enables analysis of human factors in complex manufacturing systems, especially the effect of work content on individual workload-stress perception, benefiting future development of Human Digital Twins. This research calls for experiments and clinical trials to strengthen the existing associations between model factors and more effort for developing realistic mechanisms for modeling human factors in Industry 5.0.

Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0347030

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0347030

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