• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.51-57
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• 2009

The goal of this study is to propose the effective method of investigating the injurious factors and make improvement plans that prevents the workers against musculoskeletal disorders at plastic product companies and the same business field with similar working conditions and process. A questionnaire are adopted to analyze the symptoms of workers' musculoskeletal disorders, and ergonomic assessment methods such as RULA, OWAS are performed to find out harmful factors of workplace and working posture. Based on the result of the evaluation, to enhance the working environment, improvement of worktable, working space, tools, and outfit was suggested, and induction of mechanical system was also suggested. It can be concluded that the method and process described in this paper could be helpful for diagnosing the musculoskeletal disorders risk factors and making improvement plans to the plastic product companies and the same business field with similar working conditions and process.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.97-102
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• 2011

This study was performed to design and develop an ergonomic equipment for strawberry sorting and packing in agricultural working environments. Potential risk of work related musculo-skeletal disorders associated with farm workers performing strawberry sorting and packing was analyzed through interviews, field surveys, work measurement, and working posture evaluation. For the evaluation of working posture, we used REBA, OWAS, and RULA assessment methods to identify multi-factorial risk factors. Based on the result of comprehensive assessment, a new concept of multi-level rotating table for strawberry sorting and packing was proposed to modify awkward working postures and improve the effectiveness of the farm work. Finally, the characteristics and effectiveness of new equipment was discussed in terms of improvements in productivity, safety, and subjective ratings of farm workers. The results of analysis showed that working conditions improved significantly.

• Proceedings of the ESK Conference
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.437-440
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• 1997

The association of poor body postures with pains or symptoms of musculoskeletal discorders has been reported by many researchers. An ergonomic evaluation of postural stresses as well as biomechanical stresses is also important especially when a job involves highly repetitive or prolonged poor body postures. The human body is divided into five parts: shoulder/upper arm, lower arm/wrist, back, neck, lower extremities. A work-sampling based macropostural classification system was developed to characterize various postures in this study. Application of the posture classification schema developed in this study to 7 automobile assembly tasks showed that the schema can be used as a tool to didntify the operation and tasks involving highly stressful body postures. This posture classification schema can also be applied as a basis for quantitive evaluating the workload of manual task.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.21 no.45
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• pp.357-364
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• 1998

This study deals with the performance evaluation of writing for designing handwriting instruments ergonomically. Experimental tests were executed on ballpoint pen., felt-tip pen, pencil, sharp-pencil, and fountain pen for ease of use and reduction of the muscles fatigue. The writing time and the degree of comfort of writing by subjects were measured on the diameters of five writing instruments. The results indicated that the ballpoint pen was rated significantly superior to the others in writing speed attribute and the instrument with the least fatigue was the fountain pen. There was a significant interaction effect between the types of instruments and their size in diameters. The diameter of instruments for considering time and comfort together was verified that the size of 9.5mm was efficient for ballpoint pen, the size of 8.1mm for felt-tip pen, the size of 7.5mm for pencil, the size of 8.2mm for sharp-pencil, and the size of 9.1mm for fountain pen.

• IE interfaces
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.145-154
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• 1997

In developing the HMI(Human-Machine Interface) evaluation system for the IVNS(In-Vehicle Navigation System), design guidelines and evaluation methods are the most crucial problems for its use and efficiency. As the part of this system, focused on the final product of the database, subjective mental workload assessment is seriously considered to evaluate the driver's own driving task using the IVNS. This paper suggests the methodology for the ergonomic assessment of the IVNS that corresponds to the subjective measurement of the driver's mental workload by rating his or her own driving task. For this approach, Revision of NASA-Task Load Index(RNASA-TLX) was developed which translated and revised the version of NASA-TLX that is generally accepted an efficient and powerful method for evaluating the in-vehicle information systems. To verify the RNASA-TLX, an experiment was conducted in a real road situation, because the result of the laboratory approach is uncertain and has the differences from the real road test.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.743-755
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• 2005

Human Sensibility Engineering System (HSES) has been applied to product development for customer's satisfaction based on ergonomic technology. The system is composed of three parts such as human sensibility analysis, inference mechanism, and presentation technologies. Inference mechanism translating human sensibility into design elements plays an important role in the HSES. In this paper, we propose a rule-based inference model for HSES. The rule-based inference model is composed of five rules and two inference approaches. Each of these rules reasons the design elements for selected human sensibility words with the decision variables from regression analysis in terms of forward inference. These results are evaluated by means of backward inference. By comparing the evaluation results, the inference model decides on product design elements which are closer to the customer's feeling and emotion. Finally, simulation results are tested statistically in order to ascertain the validity of the model.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.3-12
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• 1992

To put the binocular 3-D images system into practical use, it is required to investigate the relationship between the system and men and to make ergonomic evaluation of the system. In this study, we perform a comparative analysis of the changes in the accommodation and pupil functions before and afer observing binocular 3-D images a sthe visual distance varies. From the experiment, we obtained the following results: (1) The discordance in the distance informatioons on the accommodation and pupil functions when obwerving 3-D images is compensated by the miosis and altering the focal depth. (2) From the consideration of the effect of the visual distance condition on the visual functions, it is thoughth that the visual functions are stabilized at the dark focus in the sense that the changes in the tension and relazation afer observing the 3-D images are minimized.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.57-76
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• 2005

A standardized ergonomics kit is suggested to evaluate and reduce musculoskeletal hazards that yield large socioeconomic burdens in the work system. This kit comprises basic and detailed analysis tools with proper tool selection rules. The basic tool includes a checklist for various risk factors to screen potentially hazardous jobs among manual works. Selective detailed analysis tools can then be applied to the screened job lists for more quantitative and precise evaluation. The tool selection rules are devised for using the basic and detailed analysis tools in a mutually supplemental way. To validate the standardized ergonomics kit, it was applied to evaluate jobs related to the musculoskeletal hazards in a paper-making industry. Among 101 manual jobs investigated, 44 potential hazardous jobs were screened during basic investigation phase and finally 16 hazardous jobs were identified by the detailed analysis phase. The result provided fairly promising ideas of ergonomic interventions for the hazardous jobs.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.61-66
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• 2010

The objective of this paper is to study the usability of the ingress/egress of elderly people, and analyze the physiological workload electromyography (EMG). We investigated the factors of discomfort while the elderly people are using the ingress/egress. Experiments were performed using a seating buck with 22 elderly participants (over 65 years old). The results showed that different muscles are activated during ingress and egress. A system called "easy access" was found which helps to access easily when a driver gets into a car. The current easy access was compared a newly proposed one. It was found that elderly people use less muscle during in/egress in the new easy access system.

• Proceedings of the Safety Management and Science Conference
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• 2009.04a
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• pp.69-78
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• 2009

The goal of this study is to propose the effective method of investigating the injurious factors and making improved plans that prevents the workers against musculoskeletal disorders at an autoparts company and the same business field with similar working conditions and process. A questionnaire were adopted to analyze the symptoms of workers' musculoskeletal disorders, and an ergonomic assessment method such as RULA, OWAS were performed to find out harmful factors of workplace and working posture. Based on the result of the evaluation, to enhance the working environment, improvement of worktable, working space, tools, and outfit was suggested, and induction of mechanical system was also suggested. It can be concluded that the method and process described in this paper could be helpful for diagnosing the musculoskeletal disorders and making improvement plans to the autopart company and the same business field with similar working conditions and process.