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The machine NP1702 has an insufficient solution concerning ergonomically soundness. The report includes a concept to an improvement for this. Currently, the operator is bound to complete a stretching movement which is harmful to several of his/her body parts. To avoid this movement is mainly what the report is focusing on.   NP 1702, GUK, fork, leaflets, telescope arm, receptacle, noise reducing lid, sound ergonomics.

Injuries and sick-leave is a common feature for reinforcement workers today. This is mainlydue to the fact that reinforcement work is done in an exposed environment with many stressfactors and highly repetitive work. These operations are often carried out in unsuitableworking positions, these positions creates a major burden on the bones and joints and causesmicro- damages on muscles. With repetitive work these injuries are not given time to healproperly and will gradually become worse.The body will not be able to handle the stress of working in a work environment such as thisand musculoskeletal disorders can be a result of this. The injury will make itself known aspain in the musculoskeletal system and causes reduced movability; the injured worker willtherefore not be able to perform the same work tasks as before. The worst case scenario willbe long sick-leave that result in early retirement of the employee.In the current situation early retirement is something that affects 630 construction workers andthere is nothing to suggest that reinforcement workers would be under-represented in thiscategory, on the contrary. This issue will become worse now that the next generation ofreinforcement workers will have a lower basic physics than those before them. Therefore theyare more sensitive to just stress related injury such as musculoskeletal disorders. That is whyit is important now more than ever to find the problem areas and identify them. Failure to doso can lead to reinforcement workers not being able to work until their full retirement age. Itis in the employees, the company and the state's interest to ensure that all workers are able towork to full retirement age when sick leave results in high costs for all parties.The authors have therefore investigated if the use of precut and bent reinforcement and extraservices improve working conditions in the construction site. The authors have alsoinvestigated how the reinforcement process should be designed to prevent work-relatedinjuries and aids that are available at the workplace. To investigate this, the authors startedwith a literature study that included reinforcement, ergonomics and work-related injuries.When the authors felt that they had a sufficient foundation was Thomas Eriksson at CelsaSteel Service contacted and site visits booked. Workplace observations were carried outaccording to the PATH method with complementary interviews.The authors have concluded that the workplace provides aids so that work can be performedin an ergonomic way. However the reinforcement workers choose themselves to perform thework without the aids provided because they say that some aids slow them down. The authorshave perceived a low level of knowledge about ergonomics among the reinforcement workers,this leads to that the workers don’t consider the consequences of bad ergonomic which resultin improper work execution and work-related injuries. The authors also concluded that ahigher degree of prefabrication of reinforcement used results to improve the workingenvironment, even the use of extra services such as color-marked reinforcement, color-sortedreinforcement and timed deliveries contribute to a better work environment. / Skador och sjukskrivningar är ett vanligt inslag i armeringsmontörer arbetsmiljö. Detta berorfrämst på att armeringsarbeten utförs i en utsatt arbetsmiljö med många belastningsfaktoreroch mycket repetitivt arbete. Dessa arbetsmoment utförs ofta i olämpliga arbetsställningar,ställningarna skapar stora belastningar på skelett och leder samt orsakar mikro skador imusklerna. Vid repetitivt arbete ges inte skadorna tid nog för att läka ordentligt utan förvärrasmed tiden.Vid långvarigt arbete i en arbetsmiljö som detta orkar inte kroppen med, detta gör sig märkthos den skadedrabbade genom smärtor i rörelseorganen. När någon drabbas av enbelastningsskada kan det leda till att montören behöver begränsa sina arbetsuppgifter, i värstafall kan det resultera i långa sjukskrivningar och förtidspension för den anställda.I dagsläget går årligen cirka 630 byggnadsarbetare i förtidspension, det finns inget som tyderpå att armeringsmontörer skulle vara underrepresenterade i denna kategori snarare tvärtom.Nu när nästkommande generation kommer ut i arbetslivet blir det viktigare att finna enlösning på detta problem då denna generation har en 10 % sämre grundfysik än tidigare. Ominte detta görs kan de leda till att inga armeringsmontörer kommer klara av att arbeta tillspensions ålder. Det ligger i den anställda, företaget och statens intresse att se till att alla klararav att arbeta till full pensionsålder då sjukskrivningar och förtidspension leder till högakostnader för samtliga parter.Författarna har därför undersökt om användningen av iläggningsfärdig armering ochmervärdestjänster förbättrar arbetsmiljön på arbetsplatsen, författarna har även undersökt hurarmeringsprocessen bör vara utformad för att undvika arbetskador och om hjälpmedel somfinns tillgängliga på arbetsplatsen används. För att undersöka detta började författarna meden litteraturstudie där de fördjupade sig bland annat i armering, ergonomi och arbetsskador.När författarna ansåg att de hade en tillräcklig grund att stå på kontaktades Thomas Erikssonpå Celsa Steel Service och platsbesök bokades, på arbetsplatserna utfördes observationerenligt PATH metoden med kompletterade interjuver.Författarna har kommit fram till att arbetsplatser tillhandahåller hjälpmedel så att arbetet kanbli utfört på ett ergonomiskt sätt. Dock så väljer montörerna själva att utföra arbetet utan vissahjälpmedel som de anser medför ett långsammare arbetsutförande. Författarna har uppfattaten låg kunskap om ergonomi bland armeringsmontörerna vilket leder till att montörerna tarkonsekvenserna allt för lättsinnigt och som följd uteblir ”korrekt” arbetsutförande. Författarnahar även kommit fram till att desto högre prefabricerings grad av armering som användsförbättras arbetsmiljön för montörerna, även förekomsten av mervärdestjänster bidrar till enförbättrad arbetsmiljö.

Orientador: Luiz Gonzaga Campos Porto / Banca: Maria Helena Borgato / Banca: Renato Crivellari Creppe / Resumo: O ambiente de trabalho deve favorecer o bom desempenho das atividades dos colaboradores, pois reflitirá na produtividade e na lucratividade da empresa. Por isso, o conhecimento de técnicas ergonômicas, tem gerado muitos benefícios tanto para o empregado quanto para o empregador. Estas adequações permitem reduções nos custos e vão desde o cumprimento das normas da NBR-17, até diminuição de afastamentos de trabalho por doencas de esforço repetitivo ás melhorias ambientais que atingem diretamente a produtividade. Este estudo tem como objetivo identificar e analisar as condições ergonômicas que interferem nas atividades laborais dos operadores de caixa, analisando os agentes ergonômicos pertinentes à atividade desenvolvida, visando à melhoria das condições operacionais e organizacionais de suas atividades. No desenvolvimento do trabalho, realizou-se a análise ergonômica dos postos de trabalho de um supermercdo visando o conforto dos trabalhadores conforme determina a NR-17 - Ergonomia, através de dois Laudos Ergonômicos. Para avaliação dos postos de trabalho, dividiu-se a pesquisa em três etapas: na primeira etapa realizou-se a avaliação dos postos de trabalho dos operadores de caixa (checkout), através de um Laudo Ergonômico, buscando as intervenções ergonômicas necessárias, na segunda etapa, foram passadas as orientações da NR-17 para a compra dos novos checkouts. E na terceira e última etapa, foi feito o segundo laudo para a análise destes novos checkouts, para confirmação do objetivo inicial, que era o cumprimento das normas regulamentares. Neste estudo quase todos os critérios da NR 17 foram cumpridos em relação ao posto de trabalho (checkouts), porém este estabelecimetno está de acordo com o cronograma imposto pelo Anexo I da NR17 / Abstract: The work environment should favor the good performance of the employees activities, because will reflect in the company productivity and profitabililty. Therefore, knowledge of ergonomic techniques, has generated many benefits for both the employee and the employer. These adjustments lead to reductions in costs, ranging from the norms of NBR17, even a reduction in absences from work due to diseases of repetitive stress the environmental improvements that directly affect productivity. This study aims to identify and analyze ergonomic conditions that interfere in the labor activities of cash operators, analyzing the ergonomic agents relevant to the activity performed, aiming at the improvement of operational and organizational activities. In developing this work, carried out the ergonomic analyzis of the positions work of a supermarket to ensure the comfort workers as require the NR-17 - Ergonomics, through two Ergonomic Reports. For the evaluation of jobs, the survey was divided into three stages: the first step was conducted to evaluate the jobs in cashiers (checkout) through an Ergonomic Report, seeking the necessary ergonomic interventions in second stage, were passed the guidelines of the NR17 to purchase the new checkouts. And in the third and final stage, it was made the second report to examine these new checkouts, to confirmation the initial goal, which was the fulfillment or regulation standards. In this study almost all the features of NR was implemented regarding to the jobs (checkouts), but this property is consistent with the timeline imposed by Annex I of NR17 / Mestre

A field study was performed using 51 participants that were randomly selected from several Brazos Valley, Texas businesses to participate in an 8-hour assessment of office seating habits that influence seating design and testing. A control group was established as those with BMI’s < 35 and an obese group was established as those with BMI’s >35. Data was collected through written survey and through data logging of seat and back contact pressure (average and peak), surface area, center of gravity and duration of contact by recording 8 metrics, once per second using the X-sensor pressure mapping device and software. Additionally, 50 days of caster roll distance was recorded for the participants using a caster mounted digital encoder. It was determined that at alpha = 0.05, using the Student’s T-test, a significant difference did exist between the groups in mean seat time per shift (p<.001) back contacts per shift (p<.002), seat contacts per shift (p<.01) and caster distance rolled per shift (p<.001). During a subsequent lab study, data were collected during 3 cycles of ingress, egress on the armrest use, along with anthropometry and critical chair testing parameters. Center of Gravity was measured from a fixed backrest (front to rear) for 16 participants. 4 male and 4 female obese with BMI greater than 35 and 4 male and 4 female with BMI less than 30 were compared. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a significant difference existed between anthropometric factors for normal and obese participants that would affect how a chair should be loaded during testing. The null hypothesis that normal means and obese means for each measure were equal was rejected by using independent samples T-test at alpha = 0.05 with p<.001 significance reported for all measures. These data suggest a need for a fresh look at several parameters used in the normal test standards as well as a need for a tougher test method for seating designed for the obese worker.

The kinematic and kinetic characteristics of arm movement during four activities of daily living: lifting a weight, driving a steering wheel, opening/closing a door and cutting were investigated in this study by using a human movement analysis system comprising a 6 camera Vicon motion analysis system, a 6 component strain-gauged transducer, a specially designed and instrumented steering wheel simulation system, a door and a cutting plate. The most important achievements of this study are: (1) Implementation of the residual analysis technique into a computer program to filter the noisy kinematic data at an autoselected cut-off frequency for each data sequence. (2) The development of a new method of representing the velocity and acceleration of points of interest using the phase plane presentation. It was found that driving is the most complicated activity investigated in this study according to the range of arm movement. From the kinetic results, it was found that the order of difficulty of the four activities can be arranged as cutting, door opening/closing, lifting, and driving according to the magnitude of the maximum resultant total shoulder moment. The difficulty of the lifting activity increased with the weight to be lifted and the height of lifting. It was also found that the major component of the shoulder moment is the flexion/extension moment for most of the activities except driving, therefore it is concluded that having sufficient shoulder flexion/extension strength is most important for conducting most upper limb activities of daily living. In addition, the results of this study provide information for improving the understanding of the biomechanics of the upper limb activities and for clinical reference.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:28:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2007-07Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:16:38Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 moraisfilho_agm_me_guara.pdf: 542221 bytes, checksum: ac5eed0fb4b55c146551b24cee6169ef (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O objetivo deste trabalho foi estudar o movimento de levantar de uma cadeira com três alturas pré-estabelecidas tendo como parâmetro de altura do assento os ângulos de 75, 90 e 105 graus nas articulações dos joelhos. Participaram 23 voluntários, (10 mulheres e 13 homens): idade média de 24,91 anos, estatura média de 1,70 m e peso corporal médio de 64,55 kgf. Duas plataformas de força mediram as forças de reação na posição sentada e durante o movimento de levantar, uma no assento da cadeira e outra no solo. Estabeleceram-se várias correlações entre as variáveis (peso corporal, altura, idade, e índice de massa corporal), entre as forças medidas e entre os tempos dos eventos. Foi evidenciado em toda a amostra que na medida em que se diminuía a altura do assento, maior foi a força aplicada ao solo para realizar o movimento de levantar. Diferenças na distribuição de peso entre assento e solo na posição sentada estática foram encontradas entre o assento que colocava os joelhos em 75° com a altura que os colocava nos outros dois ângulos. Não houve diferenças estatísticas significativas das médias dos valores de força e tempos no levantar comparados entre os sexos. Também não houve diferenças significativas entre as variáveis e os dados adquiridos nas plataformas. / The aim of this work was to study the raising movement of a chair with three preestablished heights having as parameter of height of the seat the angles of 75, 90 and 105 degrees in the knee joints. Twenty three volunteers had participated, (10 women and 13 men): mean age of 24,91 years old, mean height of 1,70 m and mean body weight of 64,55 kgf. Two force plates had measured the reaction forces in the seated position and during the raising movement, one in the chair’s seat and the other in the floor. It was established several correlations between some variables (body weight, height, age, and body mass index), between measured forces and between the events times. It was evidenced in all the sample that as soon as the seat’s height decreased, greater was the force imposed to the floor to make real the raising movement. Differences in the weight distribution between seat and floor in the static seated position has been found between the seat that placed the knees in 75° with the height that placed it in the others two angles. There were not significant differences in the statistics of the load average values and times in the raising compared between the genders. Also they had not had significant differences between the variables and the data acquired in force plates.

The growth of touchscreen technology has changed the way users interface with a wide range of computing and communication products and systems. Examples range from personal tablets and laptops to industrial applications such as process control, point-of-sales, and ticketing kiosk systems. An important area of application is the automobile industry which is designing cars with touchscreen control panels to replace the previously designed mechanical knobs and buttons. However, interacting with touchscreens does not provide the same tactile feedback as physical mechanisms, therefore they require more precise movement and visual attention, which distracts the user from the primary task. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the optimal location of small touchscreen devices with respect to the user and her/his ability to perform secondary touchscreen tasks. Specifically, the goal was to see if there is a significant interaction between the user's gender and utilization of the touch pad by her/his preferred versus non-preferred hand. A randomized, between-subject experiment was designed and tested using five independent two-way ANOVAs. Each ANOVA tested a different type of touchscreen interaction; button clicking, dragging and typing, with typing further broken down into three two-way ANOVAs based on word length. Results indicate that in typical tasks such as navigation and selecting thumbnails there are no significant interaction or main effects with hand dominance and gender as the factors. There was a significant interaction for dragging tasks (p-value = .056) with females performing better with their dominant hand, whereas males performed better with their non-dominant hand. There was also a significant main effect for typing three letter words. Gender was the source of variability (p-value=.066) with females completing the task faster than males. Four and five letter words had no significant interaction or main effects. However, with a larger sample size there is a possibility for more significant findings. Qualitative results also revealed some important patterns which complimented the quantitative results and should be taken into consideration by designers of these systems. This study examined a small sample of different factors that may affect the use of touchscreens, and simulates just one application. There are still questions that should be answered in order to best utilize touchscreen technology. Future research in relation to touchscreens in automobiles could include testing effects of car speed, driving conditions and ideal height, angle and distance placement of screen.

The objective of this research was to evaluate the impact of current body armor design on physical performance during simulated law enforcement activities. Twenty participants completed three trials of 13 individual activities representative of routine law enforcement activities. Three body armor configurations were evaluated: baseline (i.e., no armor), concealable body armor, and external body armor. Dependent variables included task completion time, heart rate, and center of pressure (COP). Repeated measures ANOVAs were used to test the dependant variables, with Tukey’s HSD post hoc tests used where appropriate. Results showed that the vertical and horizontal components of COP were affected by armor condition, time was not affected by armor condition, and heart rate was found to have significance in the EBA condition. The findings show that there is evidence to suggest that armor can affect the physical performance of wearers as they go about completing physical activities.

Thesis (O.T.D.)--Boston University / Over recent years, there has been documented growth in sustainability efforts (O*NET, 2011; USDOE, 2011; USGBC, 2011) including sustainable development such as green building practices and jobs in the green industry. The United Nations (n.d.) defines sustainable development as development that meets the environmental, economic, and social needs of the current population while taking into account the needs of future generations. While there are known positive benefits of sustainable development to the environment (USGBC, 2011; USEPA, 2012c) and to the people involved with the practices such as green building occupants (National Academy of Sciences, 2007; Heerwagen & Zagreus, 2005; Singh et al., 2010), concerns have also been raised. Studies suggest that if the specific needs of the people directly involved with sustainable development (i.e. occupants of green buildings and schools and workers in green industry jobs) are overlooked, there can be negative consequences related to health, productivity, and satisfaction (Institute of Medicine, 2011; National Academy of Sciences, 2007; Lee and Guerin, 2009; Gambatese, 2011; Kenrick, 2011; Turner, 2006). These issues have given rise to an emerging practice area for occupational therapists (OTs) called "green ergonomics", defined as integration of ergonomics into sustainable development to enhance human performance, productivity, health and well-being, thereby promoting sustainability at both the individual and systems level (Heerwagen & Zagreus, 2005; Miller, 2010; Smahe1, 2010). The goals of occupational therapy, sustainability, and ergonomics intersect in that they all strive to address the overall well-being of a population. Despite the natural fit between these three practice areas and between OT and green ergonomics, there is a void in the occupational therapy literature regarding this intersection and resultant emerging practice area of green ergonomics. It is suspected that this has led to minimal resources to prepare OTs to enter the field, and limited awareness within and outside the profession of the role of OT in green ergonomics. To address this issue, an online continuing education (CE) course has been designed for practicing OTs with both educational and marketing components. The course was developed using best practices in online education and Social Marketing principles (Andreasen, 1994). Careful integration of the evidence to create an effective online learning environment will contribute to a positive learning experience for the students and facilitate the development of knowledge and skills in green ergonomics.