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The anthropometry of the truck driver population is largely unknown, the available databases are inappropriate, and anecdotal evidence suggests that the variation in population is significant. The combination of large anthropometric diversity with relative lack of data has made designing truck seats difficult in the past. To begin to remedy this situation, Sears Seating and Anthrotech combined resources to design a study to address this critical lack of anthropometric data on U.S. truck drivers in order to provide a scientific approach to new seat design. Data collected through the Anthropometric study is being used to develop a seat that will accommodate the majority of drivers with the adjustability to include the entire population.

Many advancements have been made through the use of technology that give seat manufacturers the capability to provide greatly improved truck seats. Until recently the design and development of new seating was accomplished primarily through static surveys. Modern technologies available today will reduce cost, development time, and the overall effort associated with utilizing real people to develop a seating project. In many instances when these seats were placed into vehicles with actual truck drivers riding in them for many hours a day, the drivers inputs resulted in multiple revisions to the original seat to satisfy their comfort issues. With modern technologies such as computer generated seat modeling, pressure mapping, and our state of the art test equipment such as a six–axis ride simulator, it has become part of any new seat development program to acquire field ride data in specific trucks and duplicate these inputs in the test laboratory.