• 산업경영시스템학회지
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• 제19권40호
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• pp.291-299
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• 1996

This study is concerned with the evaluation model construction of Man-Machine System(MMS) using Transfer Function in order to improve the control characteristics of an operator in the system and the procedure for ergonomic system design, When man, as a subsystem, performs his allocated functions in a system, many physical and physiological problems such as fatigue, stress and error occur. And the imperfect design of a MMS may itself be a situational factor that accelerates stress as well as an idiosyncratic factor that causes errors. So, the economy of design should be considered together with the ergonomic characteristics on the evaluation of MMS.

• 대한안전경영과학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한안전경영과학회 2005년도 춘계학술대회
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• pp.251-257
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to execute the investigation of injurious factors causing muscle-skeletal diseases at an automotive glass manufacturing company and, on the basis of the results, to enhance productivity by the improvement of working environment. By using an survey and an ergonomic evaluation method, symptoms of muscle-skeletal diseases of workers and working postures at each process were analyzed, and quantitative evaluation of muscle-skeletal disease risk against each process was performed. 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. Suggested improvement plan was applied to the workplace step by step and it is confirmed that improvement plan not only removes the injurious factors of muscle-skeletal diseases but also is effective to enhance productivity.

• 대한인간공학회지
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• 제12권1호
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• pp.17-24
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• 1993

Today, rapid development and timeliness of introducing a new product be- comes a more influencing factor of determing its competitive power due to a shortened product cycle, while rapid improvement of manufacturing technology makes product design and manufacturing fuse together. This implies that prod- uct usability evaluation and improvement starts right from its design phase, resulting in less development time and cost. To make this possible, proper as- sessment of human reach is one of essential functions for ergonomic product us- ability evaluation, specifically in the platform of computer-aided ergonomic evaluation models or any CAD system with a built-in man model. In this study, an analytic reach prediction algorithm ensuring the posture that human naturally takes, is presented by employing the methods developed for robot kinematics. Among robot kinematic methods for solving the multi-link system, the resolved motion method was found to be effective to solve human reach as a redundant manipulator model. Also, the joint range availability was used as a performance fonction to guarantee human naturalness. The result is expected to be directly applicable to product usability evaluations.

• 대한인간공학회지
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• 제27권4호
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• pp.27-35
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• 2008

Recently, many studies have reported the fact that an excessively accumulated psychological and physical burden induced from physical labor conducted routinely in home and industry can be one of main reasons of musculoskeletal disorders in the working population. This fact makes increase interests in studies to reduce a risk of musculoskeletal disorders through grafting ergonomic considerations on working environment. However, there are currently limited methodologies in quantitative evaluations of new ergonomic suggestions to reduce a risk of musculoskeletal disorders. The current study is therefore performed to evaluate quantitatively effects of a design of washing machine as a new ergonomic suggestion onto prevention of musculoskeletal disorders, through application of a biomechanical evaluation methodology. For this, three-dimensional motion analysis by using musculoskeletal models with Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA), which has been generally used for a simple evaluation of a degree of harmfulness of the human body at specific working postures to be considered, was performed. The results of REBA did not give us enough information and their results were somewhat simple and inaccurate, but the results of the three-dimensional motion analysis give us enough information such as alteration of main muscle forces and joint moments required during washing work. All results showed that the main muscle strengths and joint moments were decreased effectively for reduction of a risk of musculoskeletal disorders during the washing work with newly designed washing machine evaluated in the current study, compared with those generated during the washing work with general washing machine. From these results, it can be concluded that a risk of the musculoskeletal disorders, which may be induced by a repetitive washing work, may be reduced through using the washing machine designed ergonomically and newly. Also, it is thought that if our ergonomic design can be applied for improvement of working environment in lifting and laying works conducted repeatedly for a treatment work of goods, which have a strong resemblance to the behaviors generated frequently during the washing work, a possibility of occurrence of the musculoskeletal disorders by the lifting and laying works may be reduced highly.

• 대한인간공학회지
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• 제30권3호
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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.

• 대한인간공학회지
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• 제33권2호
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• pp.143-153
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• 2014

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of trunk-forearm supported sitting on trunk flexion angle, trunk extensor fatigue and seat contact pressure. Background: The relationship between sitting posture and musculoskeletal disorders of the trunk extensor fatigue and seat contact pressure has been documented. The trunk-forearm support type ergonomic chair was devised from the fact that trunk-forearm support has been reported to reduce trunk extensor activity and discomfort. Method: Using three different sitting postures, upright ($P_1$), trunk-forearm supported ($P_2$) and normal sitting ($P_3$), six healthy subjects participated in the study. Motion capture system was used to collect head and trunk flexion angle, and surface electromyography (sEMG) was used to collect myoelectric signal of upper trapezius, lower trapezius, erector spinae, multifidus, and pressure mat system was used to measure seat contact pressure. Results: When trunk and forearm were supported by the ergonomic chair, higher head flexion angle showed upright > trunk-forearm supported > normal in order, and muscle fatigue showed less than upright and normal sitting. Mean seat contact pressure decreased 19% than upright sitting. But muscle fatigue was not affected by each condition. Conclusion: Trunk-forearm supported sitting of the ergonomic chair showed positive effect in respect of trunk and head flexion angle, trunk extensor fatigue, seat contact pressure. To acquire comprehensive understanding of the effectiveness of the ergonomic chair, further studies such as anatomical effects from measurement of external applied loading effect to the body from interface pressure analysis are required. Application: The results of the publishing trend analysis might help physiological effects of trunk-forearm support type chair.

• 대한인간공학회지
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• 제25권2호
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• pp.119-124
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• 2006

The present study evaluated the accuracy of MSD-related work criterion of Korea Ministry of Labor by using ergonomic workload evaluation methods. 1,948 manufacturing works in automobile industry were divided into 1,286 MSD-related risky works and 662 risk-free ones by using RULA, ANSI Z-365 and perceived discomfort evaluation. Then, the two types of works were evaluated by Labor Ministry work criterion to analyze the classification accuracy of the work criterion. The work criterion of Korea Labor Ministry had low hit and false alarm ratio(20 and 11%) and high miss and correct rejection ratio(80 and 89%), and the odd ratios of hit and correct rejection were 0.2 and 8.3, respectively. It can be concluded that the work criterion of Korea Labor Ministry is a conservative evaluation method which tends to evaluate a target work as risk-free.

• 한국산업보건학회지
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• 제10권2호
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• pp.40-52
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• 2000

The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevailing ergonomic conditions regarding low back injury in an assembly factory, In this study, analytic biomechanical model and NIOSH guidelines were applied to evaluate risk levels of low back injury for automobile assembly jobs. Total of 246 workers were analysed. There were 10 jobs with greater back compressive forces than 350kg at L5/S1. Also there were 44 jobs over Action Limit in terms of 1981 NIOSH guidelines. This could in part be explained by the ergonomic conditions of the companys analysed as not hazardous, with a relatively low duration of 'combined' extreme work posture. However, more ergonomic intervention could be done based on those results.

• 대한안전경영과학회지
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• 제7권4호
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• pp.73-83
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• 2005

The goal of this study is to propose the improved scheme that prevents the workers against musculoskeletal disorders at a fishcake manufacturing company, A questionnaire and an ergonomic assessment method were adopted to analyze the symptoms of workers' musculoskeletal disorders, and an analysis of working postures and a quantitative assessment on various processes were performed to find out harmful factors of workplace. 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. Suggested improvement plan was applied to the workplace step by step and it is confirmed that improvement plan can removes the injurious factors of musculoskeletal diseases effectively.

• 대한인간공학회지
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• 제31권1호
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• pp.185-189
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• 2012

Objective: The aim of this paper is to introduces Hyundai Heavy Industry's ergonomic risk assessment tool, H-OWAS, which is considering work load and frequency compared to the OWAS. Background: As prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal disorders(WMSDs) in ship building industries has been much higher than that in other industries, most of the large scaled corporations have implemented their own prevention program since legislation on the prevention of WMSDs had introduced in 2003. Method: This paper introduces WMSDs prevention program, HEMP(HHI Ergonomics Management Program) which consists of risk assessment, improvement efforts of working environments, medical treatment and training/evaluation and describes how to operate the program. We also describe application of OWAS method considering work load and frequency for risk factor analysis(H-OWAS) and shows methodology for assessing the ergonomic risk factor. And comparison of the assessment results between OWAS and H-OWAS is carried out by statistical analysis. Result: There was statistically significant difference in the assessment results between OWAS and H-OWAS, and regression shows H-OWAS explains the borg's scale of perceived exertion more clearly than OWAS. Conclusion: H-OWAS has been proved more effective tool than OWAS to evaluate ergonomic risk factor under real working condition. Application: H-OWAS can be widely applied to the many other companies when implementing the ergonomics risk assessment.