Alternative Ergonomic Job Analysis Methods for Manufacturing Final performance rept

摘要

This study focused on the development and evaluation of new exposure assessment strategies for non-cyclic as and cyclic manufacturing jobs. New methods for the evaluation of ergonomic problems in special trades work and self-paced assembly work within a forging plant were developed. A work-sampling based approach was used to evaluate the postural and manual material handling requirements of millwrights work. Over 8,000 observations were made on 8 workers taken over 8 days to allow an assessment of the between worker and between day variability of exposures for this occupation. For the self-paced manufacturing jobs, a video-based ergonomic job analysis method was used to estimate the frequency of awkward postures, manual materials handling, average cycle times, and estimated rest allowance for different muscle groups. Bootstrapping, a statistical re-sampling method, was used to examine the reliability of different exposure assessment strategies so that recommendations could be made about the appropriate use of the alternative exposure assessment methods. The recommended strategies were then pilot tested on a third self-paced manufacturing job for which 45 videos were recorded to provide a preliminary assessment of the generalizability of the results.