The research aims at developing robust assessment and design strategies to support industrial engineers in the selection of optimal solutions for safety and ergonomics. It is realized through a successful integration of knowledge in experimental statistics, biomechanical modelling and advanced engineering design. The robust assessment and design strategies have been applied to the context of aircraft and automotive seat design, respectively. They rely on both physical and VR simulated experiments. In the former case, seat comfort is assessed via subjective perceptions and postural responses to seat exposures measured via interface pressure maps; whereas in simulated experiments, ergonomic evaluations are based on postural indexes based on joint angles. The adoption of the proposed strategies has provided interesting results in deepening the knowledge on seat ergonomics with focus on three main critical aspects: 1) differences in postural responses to seated exposures; 2) the impact of gender-based postural differences on objective measures of seat discomfort; 3) the usefulness of postural measurements ( i.e. seat-interface pressure and joint angles) in finding significant differences in seat designs across different target populations of users.