• 대한인간공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한인간공학회 1998년도 춘계학술대회논문집
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• pp.19.1-24
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• 1998

Designers often hesitate to decide the shape, size, and layout of a product. Though ergonomic principles and data are absolutely needed in this process, they don't have enough guidelines to refer. For the refrigerator designers, they also are not convinced of their decision: the vertical position of the freezing and refrigerating rooms, the height of shelves, the shape of door-handle, and etc. To support the refrigerator design, we applied several ergonomic methods to the evaluation of a refrigerator. EMG measurement was used to evaluate the load of user's lumbar muscle. Based upon the experimental EMG data, we developed a model to predict the relative load according to the height of refrigerator shelves. Two different layouts of a refrigerator, R/F and F/R style, were compared with the model. A three-dimenaional motion analysis method was used to evaluate the user's motion of using a refrigerator. Ten door-handles with the different shapes and positions were evaluated by tracking the rotations of the user's arm. Video protocol analysis was used to evaluate the user interface of a control panel in a refrigerator. Finally, we made several ergonomic design guidelines based on the facts found in this research and the anthropometric data of the Korean adults. The results of this study can be applied to the ergonomic design of a refrigerator.

• 대한산업공학회지
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• 제37권1호
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• pp.10-18
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• 2011

Ergonomic product design considering users' natural use motion is of importance to improve the usability and satisfaction of a product. A five-step process of product design was developed in the present study by measuring and analyzing users' natural product-use motion with a motion capture system. The developed process was applied to ergonomic design improvement of a half guard installation part of refrigerator; new guard designs (diagonal and arc shape) were developed with the process and evaluated in terms of validity during the development as two measures (task satisfaction and similarity of natural motion). According to the evaluation result, the satisfaction at putting in- and out-task of new guard designs ($6.3{\pm}0.5$ points) was significantly higher than that of existing guard designs ($3.3{\pm}1.0$ points); the difference between natural motion and product-use motion in new guard designs ($1.0{\pm}0.3cm$) was significantly less than that of existing guard designs ($2.0{\pm}0.2cm$). The proposed process of natural motion analysis and product design is applicable to ergonomic product design and evaluation.

• 대한산업공학회지
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• 제18권1호
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• pp.105-120
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• 1992

An expert system was developed as a framework of integrating diverse and multifactored ergonomic knowledge to investigate its effectiveness in ergonomic workplace design and evolution. Although numerous computer-assisted approaches have been made to overcome the lack of integrated design principles, those models being used require very specific information of various design activities that may not be available in the design stage. On the other hand, an expert system would be an effective design aid that is capable of guiding the designer to solve a problem. However, most expert systems lack detailed evaluation capabilities due to a qualitative nature of inference mechanisms. Furthermore, those approaches were independently developed, focusing mostly on a single aspect such as biomechanics, physiology, etc. In this paper, a design framework was developed which takes advantage of expert system metholologies, a relational data base and existing ergonomic models. The pattern-directed, rule-based expert system allows the designer to gradually formulate and subsequently evaluate workplace design. A comprehensive and modularized knowledge base was built incorporating biomechanics, physiology and psychophysics, which is, in turn, capable of accessing not only qualitative knowledge but complex analytic evaluation models and massive information in the data base through an interface. A conflict resolution strategy using multiple criteria decision-making schemes was also employed to reconcile multiple design alternatives.

• 한국산업보건학회지
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• 제19권2호
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• pp.88-95
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• 2009

There are many assessment techniques used for occupational risk factors of MSDs in the workplaces. However, because all ergonomic assesment techniques or tools are based on theoretical background derived from workphysiology, biomechanics, psychophysics, industrial hygiene, work system, and etc, it is impossible to compare the assessment techniques. This study was conducted to compare the excess rates of risk factors among ergonomic assessment techniques and to make alternative methods. Site-visits to 6 automobile products and parts company provided data for process repeated work where the produced data was examined for evaluating the relationship between workplace lay-out and work posture by using ergonomic assessment techniques. We evaluated 157 jobs for simple repeated work and 37 jobs for manual materials handling (MMH). In simple repeated work, the exceeded rates of AC were 36.3% in OWAS method and 93.0% in RULA method. The exceeded rate for RULA method was significantly higher than those for OWAS method (p<0.05). In MMH, the exceeded rates of AC were 80.0% in NLE method and 76.5% in WAC method. Statistically significant differences were not identified in the exceeded rates for NLE and MAC methods (p<0.05). The analyzed results among ergonomic assessment techniques (OWAS, RULA, NLE/WAC) were applied to the same work places performing simple repeated work and manual materials handling simultaneously. The applied results showed statistically significant differences (p<0.05) among ergonomic assessment techniques (OWAS, RULA, NLE/WAC). Exceeded rates of four ergonomic assessment techniques in decreasing order was "RULA>NLE>WAC>OWAS". The RULA method was the strongest assessment technique for automobile products and parts company. We discovered that the results could easily be overestimated or underestimated when the ergonomic assessment techniques were not applied correctly during the evaluation process. Therefore, we recommend using at least 2 methods when evaluating and analysing the results.

• 대한인간공학회지
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• 제12권2호
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• pp.15-28
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• 1993

Proper ergonomic design of a passenger seat for the highspeed train is one of the essential design components that is directly related to passenger comfort. This study investigated a systematic approach to the ergonomic passenger seat design and evaluation for the Korean highspeed train. To design an ergonomic passenger seat that improves passenger confort, Korean anthropometric data, pas- senger activities in the coach, body postures, body contours and seat dimensions were considered. By analyzing the interredlationship of such factors, resultant seat dimensions were suggested. To properly ecaluate the suggested dimensions, four prototypes were subsequently made and iteratively tested in the laboratory. It is expected that this approach is readily applicable to the passenger seat design of other transport vehicles as well as a train.

• 대한산업공학회지
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• 제12권2호
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• pp.13-19
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• 1986

The purpose of this paper is to develop a 3-dimensional human model, an ergonomic CAD (Computer-Aided Design) system which would be very helphul in ergonomic design. An interactive program was developed, in which a user could change layout, body size, skin volume, and posture of the human model. As an example, effect of inclination of a steering wheel on visibility of a display panel was demonstrated. he result showed that ergonomic design can be aided by the 3-dimensional human model, and by the perspective graph by which design and evaluation process can be carried out more effectively.

• 대한산업공학회지
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• 제28권2호
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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.

• 대한인간공학회지
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• 제27권4호
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• pp.45-58
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• 2008

Ergonomic techniques have been required to analyze the effectiveness of functional clothing design improvement in a systematic and analytic manner. The goals of the present study are to: (1) comprehensively and analytically examine the effectiveness of clothing improvement by using the relationship analysis between clothing design components (D) and ergonomic evaluation measures (E) and (2) prove the usefulness of cost-effectiveness analysis for clothing design optimization. The cost effectiveness analysis is comprised of the preliminary evaluation based on expertise and the in-depth evaluation where the D-E relationship analysis is applied. As a result of the cost effectiveness analysis applied to flame-proof clothing, an optimal design was identified by analyzing costs and qualitative/quantitative effects. In the preliminary evaluation, the expected effectiveness of each design alternative on wear efficiency and wear comfort was estimated. In the in-depth evaluation, however, the effectiveness of each design alternative was analyzed by quantitative evaluation in a wearing test using a questionnaire prepared based on the D-E relationship analysis. It was concluded that the D-E relationship analysis and the cost-effectiveness analysis are useful for comprehensive evaluation and optimization of functional clothing design.

• 한국의류산업학회지
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• 제21권6호
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• pp.776-788
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• 2019

This study developed an ergonomic Korean female military winter jacket and (inner and outer) pattern in in order to increase dimension and operational suitability for military missions. First we developed the 1st development pattern and sample jackets with improved dimensions and operational suitability based on a previous investigation of fitness and motion suitability of Korean female military winter jackets (inner and outer) and motion suitability by a wearing test. The evaluation result of fitness for the 1st development pattern were over 4.0 (5.0 Likert scale) for both the inner and outer jacket, a positive result and the result of motion suitability were over 3.5 in both the inner and outer jacket except for the neck front part by collar height. However, we did not modify the collar height because decreases in warmth and military regulations. We also evaluated appearance by experts that showed good results in both the inner and outer jacket. Finally, we developed a final pattern based on evaluation results and military regulations. Existing military uniform research was conducted mainly on male soldiers. Beginning with this study, we expect to expand research on the development of military uniform patterns suitable for a female soldier body type.

• 한국안전학회지
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• 제14권4호
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• pp.168-175
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• 1999

The objective of this research is to review the ergonomic keyboard developed to prevent musculo-skeletal disorders from being occurred during keyboard work. It was studied by comparing it with the traditional keyboard after analyzing and comparing the typing performance and work advantages both the two keyboards. Twelve male subjects with no history of musculo-skeletal disorders participated in the experiment. The quantitative data such as typing speed, accuracy, performance time, and the number of typing errors were obtained from the HTT software that was adjusted for this experiment. RULA worksheet and the degrees of extension and ulnar deviation on right and left wrist were used to analyze the upper body postures. The experiment results showed that the typing performance of the ergonomic keyboard decreased a little, but no significant difference statistically, compared with that of the traditional keyboard. On the work posture, the ulnar deviation during typing decreased in case of the ergonomic keyboard. But, the wrist extension was increased unexpectedly. Therefore, it can be regarded as these results occur due to the shape of wrist rest and the overall height of keyboard on a table. As a result, the reconsideration and redesign on the ergonomic keyboard are requested.