사용 편의성에 기초한 작업 영역의 결정

Determination of Working Area Based on Operator's Working Comfort

For efficient operation, vital hand controls must be easily controlled by the operator from his or her normal working position. The primary working area based on the operator-perceived working comfort was developed to serve as a design guideline to the control panel layout. Six male and four female subjects voluntarily participated in the experiment in which working comfort was measured for two types of controls - knob and lever. The operator-perceived working comfort was examined for the frontal and sagittal distances from the body center and the slope of a work surface. The response surface methodology using a central composite design was employed to develop a prediction model for operator's working comfort on each type of controls. The proposed working areas based on the actual working comfort of an operator avoided the dichotomy that considers only the reachability of control devices, and showed a distinct shape, when compared to the existing normal working areas following the Farley's concept. It was shown that the distance from the body to control devices and the slope of a work surface have a quadratic relationship to the working comfort, and that the most comfortable area for seated tasks is located at the distance of about 2∼4 cm in the sagittal direction and about 42∼43 cm in the frontal direction from the shoulder, respectively. It was also found that the working comfort varies within the working area even at the positions with an equal distance from the body. It is expected that the isocomfort working area generated in the study will be used as a useful guideline for control panel layout.