Antonio Lanzotti
Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Naples "Federico II", Italy
Amalia Vanacore
Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Naples "Federico II", Italy
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Published in: 10th QMOD Conference. Quality Management and Organiqatinal Development. Our Dreams of Excellence; 18-20 June; 2007 in Helsingborg; Sweden
Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 26:101, p.
Published: 2008-02-15
ISBN:
ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)
In most industrialized countries; the costs of compensation for musculoskeletal disorders accounts for more than one half of all workers’ compensation costs (Norman and Wells; 1998). Several reviews have evidenced that a strong work-related component exists for many upper limb and low back pain cases (NIOSH; 1997; Fogleman and Lewis; 2002). In particular; there is a growing recognition that office tasks; especially those associated with Visual Display Terminal (VDT) can lead to musculoskeletal disorders.
There are hundreds of ergonomic interventions described in the scientific and lay literature (Park et al.; 2000); unfortunately most of them lack formal evaluation.
Research on ergonomic interventions is very difficult to do for many reasons that include: a work environment that changes more rapidly than the time it takes to complete a well designed study; the natural change in the work place that inhibits maintenance of proper control groups for the duration of a study; the high costs of studying sufficiently large groups to obtain acceptable statistically significant comparisons between intervention and control groups; inducing companies to get involved in this type of research given inevitable work interruptions. Obviously; it is important to identify ergonomic interventions that are effective in reducing the incidence of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSD); their personal costs and the monetary costs associated with them (Norman and Wells; 1998).
A current challenge for research is to involve statisticians; experts in the field of ergonomics; designers and project engineers in the formulation of methods and procedures to support the design and the analysis of experiments in virtual environment.
In this paper; the Authors present the first results of a research aimed at minimizing discomfort of a new VDT workstation; through the application of parameter design methodology. In order to discriminate among various design solutions; a comfort index based on a loss function is applied. In this way; the optimal VDT workstation design – in terms of minimum discomfort for VDT operator in static posture – can be found. Besides; in order to improve the posture assumed by operators with different anthropometric characteristics; abacuses for adjustment of a working seat to Visual Display Terminal (VDT) are proposed.
The proposed approach is based on the use of digital human models and some posture and task analysis toolkits implemented in a software for ergonomic simulations (Classic Jack by UGS).
Robust Ergonomic Design; Human manikin; Postural Comfort Assessment; Anthropometrical Variability
