• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.243-249
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• 2023

Background: Southeast Asia has many people who work in the agriculture sector. Not many stakeholders pay special attention to the health of farmers, even though they are exposed to various types of hazards. One of the most common health complaints among farmers is related to work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). This study aims to assess the prevalence of WMSDs and factors associated with them among farmers in Southeast Asia. Methods: A literature search on PubMed, ScienceDirect, Scopus, and EBSCO was conducted. Articles were included if they studied ergonomic problems among farmers from 11 countries in the Southeast Asia region and were published during 2015-2022. The Critical Appraisal Skills Program was used to evaluate the quality of the articles. The search process and retrieval process reflected PRISMA's recommendation. Result: There were 14 studies found from 3 countries that had published articles in PubMed and ScienceDirect, including Thailand [8], Indonesia [4], and Malaysia [2]. The prevalence of WMSDs in Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia was 78,31%, 81,27%, and 88,39%, respectively. Common factors associated with WMSDs include age, sex, smoking habits, drinking alcohol habits, working period (years), type of work, awkward position, non-ergonomic equipment, repetitive movements, and lifting heavy loads. Conclusion: The prevalence of WMSDs among farmers in Southeast Asia is considerably high. Effective intervention is essential for reducing the prevalence and protecting workers' health and well-being.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.56-67
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• 2005

The Processes of a new product design based on ergonomics and customer satisfaction have been studied for years. However, few attempts have been made to systematically include ergonomic design concept to communication service design. Service design can be regarded as a specific type of product design in a way that the processes of product design can also be employed to those of service design. However, a few difficulties may often arise in doing so. First, services have no explicit tangible features, which implies that a customer may not properly appraise contents, quality and functionality of newly designed services with a prototype before launching into market. Second, customer demands on services change more rapidly according to advances in related technology. In the study, we examined earlier studies of product design process and identified that a service design process must alos conform ergonomic methodology, extracting innovative values for creativitybased design and subsequently evaluate its level of customer satisfaction. In this study, we proposed a customer-centered ergonomic design process for communication services. This process includes a hierarchical structure of service requirement identification, customer-centered trend analysis, service scenario development and service evaluation. To prove the practicality of the design process, a case study of communication service design was conducted according to the procedure that follows.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.107-112
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• 2010

The automation and Cell-Line of manufacturing process are going to be new trend in the industry spot. But workers bodily burden by manual labour is still doing repeatedly at many processes. It is appearing to workers bodily burden (Shoulder, waist, hand, wrist, leg) with repeating works at assembly line which is from the static working space. The analysis with 6 Sigma Tool at specific standard assembly line improve the point at issue for unsuitable items and analyzed objects. Physical pain of worker is solved by the improvement action for the factor of 7 items with the result of analysis. It was known to be improved by solving of workers burden related to the change of 6 Sigma level from 2.16 to 4.1 at assembly line.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.595-609
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• 2016

Objective: The purpose of this study was to develop and validate the guidelines for Medic Work Table (MWT) based on the anthropometric data of medical technologists. Background: Users' anthropometric data such as sitting height, sitting elbow height, knee height, and so on are significant factors for designing comfortable and useful furniture. Thus, many guidelines for different types of desks and chairs based on the users' anthropometric data have been suggested to many researchers. However, few researches have been conducted to provide design guidelines for MWT for blood collecting task. Medical technologists often use their upper extremities to perform blood collecting task with high repetitions. These repeated motions could be a critical factor in the prevalence rate of Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WMSDs). Therefore, a study on ergonomic design of MWT would be essential in preventing the WMSDs and improving the quality of the working environment of medical technologists. Method: This study suggested design guidelines for ergonomic MWT by focusing on the heights of the upper side and underside, depths of the inside and outside, and width of MWT through anthropometric studies and literature reviews. Afterwards, a new MWT was made using the suggested design guidelines for this study. Five healthy medical technologists participated to evaluate the original MWT and new MWT. All participants took part in the range of motion (ROM) test, electromyography (EMG) muscle activity test, and usability test to validate the suggested guidelines in this study. EMG signals of related muscles (Flexor Carpi Ulnaris, Extensor Carpi Ulnaris, Deltoid Anterior, and Biceps Branchii) were recorded through the surface electromyography system from both the original MWT and the new MWT. The ROM test of the shoulder and elbow flexion was also assessed using motion sensors. Results: The newly designed MWT showed decreased ROMs of the shoulder and elbow up to 22% and 18% compared to the original MWT. The muscle activities in the new MWT also showed a decrease of 13% in Anterior Deltoid, 6% in Biceps Brachii, 5% in Flexor Carpi Ulnaris, and 8% in Extensor Carpi Ulnaris muscle groups, compared to the original MWT. In the usability test, the satisfaction score of the new MWT was also 56.1% higher than that of the original MWT. Conclusion: This study suggested guidelines for designing MWT and validating the guidelines through qualitative and quantitative analyses. The results of motion analysis, muscle activity, and usability tests demonstrated that the newly designed MWT may lead to less physical stress, less awkward posture, and better physical user interface. Application: The recommended guidelines of the MWT would be helpful information for designing an ergonomic MWT that reduces physical loads and improves the performance of many medical technologists.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.216-222
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• 2002

The ergonomic human model can be considered as a tool for the evaluation of ergonomic factors in vehicle design process. The proper anthropometric data on driver's postures are needed in order to apply a human model to vehicle design. Although studies on driver's posture have been carried out for the last few decades, there are still some problems for the posture data to be applied directly to the human model due to the lack of fitness because such studies were not carried out under the conditions for the human model application. In the traditional researches, the joint angles were evaluated by the categorized data, which are not appropriate for the human model application because it is so extensive that it can not explain the posture evaluation data in detail. And the human models require whole-body posture evaluation data rather than joint evaluation data. In this study a postural evaluation function was developed not by category data but by the concept of the loss function in quality engineering. The loss was defined as the discomfort in driver's posture and measured by the magnitude estimation technique in the experiment using a seating buck. Four loss functions for the each joint - knee, hip, shoulder, and elbow were developed and a whole-body postural evaluation function was constructed by the regression analysis using these loss functions as independent factors. The developed postural evaluation function shows a good prediction power for the driver's posture discomfort in validation test. It is expected that the driver's postural evaluation function based on the loss function can be used in the human model application to the vehicle design process.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.409-418
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• 2011

Objective: This study was performed to evaluate the child-care teachers' job in relation to physical work. Background: Child-care teacher is directly related to the quality of child care. And their physical activity is higher than general education teachers because the proportion of day care is high. But analyzes of child-care teachers' job burdens and the work environment associated with physical activity is not well established. Method: To conduct this study, the child-care teachers' job was classified into 18 physical works. After classification, posture was evaluated by ergonomic posture evaluation schemes of OWAS, RULA, REBA and evaluated for each physical part. Next, musculoskeletal subjective symptoms were analyzed. Results: The results showed the following: The highest assessment on the posture evaluation was "helping children to ride a school bus", "feeding: meal/snack", "brushing children's teeth" and "arrangement of nap-stuff". The rank of high-risk assessment on the neck/trunk/leg part was arranged by: "feeding: meal/snack", "helping children to ride a school bus", "making nap", "arrangement nap-stuff" and "brushing children's teeth". The rank of high-risk assessment on the upper limbs part was arranged by: "helping children to ride a school bus", "the bust - group activity", "meal/snack time - preparing, feeding, arrangement", "nap time - preparing, arrangement", "brushing children's teeth", and "using the toilet". According to the results of each musculoskeletal subjective symptom, teachers ordered the pain area as follows: waist, shoulder, leg/feet, and neck, and they showed more pain on trunk than the upper limbs. Conclusion: To sum up the results from ergonomic posture evaluation and a subjective symptom, the following are high working pressures: "feeding: meal/snack", "the bust - group activity", "making nap", "brushing children's teeth" with deep bending and waist twisting, "helping children to ride a school bus", "brushing children's teeth" with lifting shoulder; "meal/snack time - preparing, arrangement", "nap time - preparing, arrangement", and "using the toilet" with moving or an up-down position in their job. Application: The results of this study might be information for improvement of the child-care teachers' job environment.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.39-49
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• 2006

Forklift achieves transportation of freight and continues loading and unloading work repeatedly long for hours in industry spot. Therefore, drivers feel tired make a mistake for wrong operation of vehicle caused by continuous work. These components are resulted in CTDs, some industrial accident. That is the forklift need to ergonomics access. So, in this paper, requirements of forklift user were abstracted using questionnaire, produced important design factor for pedal and lever using QFD(Quality Function Deployment), and then suggested ergonomic considerations for industrial accident prevention.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.35-45
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• 1999

Driver centered vehicle design is the important factor for driver's safety, product quality, and so on. Therefore, people has recently recognized the importance of driver centered vehicle design. Especially, in the focus of driver-vehicle interaction system, it is very important factor to ergonomic design of vehicle cockpit. In this study, Sketch Map method was used to measure of driver's cognitive map on IP(Instrument Panel) that is the basic factor to ergonomic design for vehicle cockpit. The compatibility of Sketch Map method was validated for the measurement of driver's cognitive map and then the accuracy between two groups was analyzed using Sketch Map method. Subjects were divided in two groups, the first group of subjects has their own vehicles and driver license, and the second group of subjects doesn't have own vehicle but has driver license. The result showed that for the case of the first group, the shape of IP in the cognitive map was influenced by IP of their each vehicle. However, for the case of the second group, it showed the difference between IP in the cognitive map and IP of experienced vehicle many times because they have been driving various type of vehicle. So, the shape of IP in the cognitive map was influenced by various type of IP.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.199-205
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• 2013

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the job rotation implementation at medium- or small-industries and to identify the viewpoint on job rotation as preventive activity of work-related musculoskeletal disorders(WMSDs). Background: Job rotation has been implemented in many industrial areas in order to prevent the WMSDs as one part of ergonomic program. Generally, the cases of implementation of ergonomic program or successful cases of job rotation were reported on the side of major or large company. Therefore, this study tried to inspect the current state of job rotation implementation at medium- or small-industries. Method: Survey was carried out for randomly contacted forty seven mangers responsible for safety. Survey contained the questionnaires on the general state of company, shift-work and job rotation. Results: The ratio of work-shift in medium- and small-industry was 34.0% and the ratio of job rotation was 19.1%. For manufacturing industry, the ratio was 37.9% and 17.2%, respectively. Conclusion: The implementation ratio of job rotation was relatively low considering the results of previous studies. Many managers appealed the quality decreasing of goods and the injuries of workers due to job rotation, though agreed to train the multi-functional worker and to prevent the WMSDs. Application: The results can be used for the fundamental data how the job rotation will be properly implemented in medium- and small-industry as an administrative control for MSDs.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.219-225
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• 2010

A structure of line for producing products is variously changing to be automatic and one-person Cell-Line considering the physical burden for workers in manufacturing industry of electronic goods. However, workers tend to still accuse Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorders (including shoulder, waist, hand, wrist, leg etc.) as a simply repeated work by accelerating of the production speed for productivity improvement in the assembly line. Thus manufacturing engineers in charge of changing and set up newly for an assembly line are necessary to the construct of the guideline on human engineering. Especially. There is no standardized engineering-guide and it is difficult to create the exact work environment because the risk factor analysis and the improvement for assembly line are executed once a year on the current situation. I'd like to reduce the physical burden on workers through the effective improvement of processing by the guideline on working environment fit for a characteristic on manufacturing process when the process is changed or newly installed.