Individualized workplace ergonomics using motion capture.

Production workers suffer from musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) due to excessive workloads that exceed the individual physical capabilities. In order to assess and subsequently reduce the risk to suffer from a MSD at a specific workplace, companies use ergonomic screening methods. However, the current approaches have two major downsides: Firstly, they do not take the individual worker and his/her capabilities into account. Applied thresholds for joint angles or physical loads are standard values that do not address physical limitations, such as age-related loss of flexibility or muscle strength. Secondly, the methods only provide a risk assessment that indicates which workplaces and/or working postures are ergonomically hazardous. Necessary workplace improvements are decoupled from the results and require extensive ergonomic knowledge. This paper presents a method that uses an individualized ergonomics analysis to improve workplaces according to individual needs and helps the industrial engineer to find necessary workplace improvements.

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Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: