Ergonomics Commons^™

2d Wireform Process Improvement, Katy Conlin, Carlo Ebora, Jordan Gamble

Mechanical Engineering

The body of this work has been created for Edwards Lifesciences in conjunction with senior project requirements. As such, the information produced and contained within is under a non‐disclosure agreement. As per request by sponsor, the body of the work will not be submitted to any outside parties, and the title page will serve as proof of completion.

Ergonomics Study Led Lighting Assembly, Marylin Glass-Angeles, Nathan Christensen, Josef Imesh, Lorena Peña, Natalia Matos

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

The current assembly process of the LED Lighting product line at Landscape Forms (LF) combines high force exertion, motion repetition and an uncomfortable posture. Therefore, Industrial Engineers overseeing the manufacturing of these products raised a concern for their workers health and were interested in identifying injury risks related to the current methodology as well as opportunities for the reduction of such risks.

Injury Prevention With Physical Therapy, Karen Kott, Margaret F. Lemaster

Rehabilitation Sciences Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) Ergonomics is the study of human performance (positioning and movement) and workplace design, such as equipment, ambience, and placement. The purpose of ergonomics is to maximize productivity by increasing safety, improving work quality, reducing operator fatigue and discomfort, and decreasing the risk of work -related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs).^1-3

Experimental Evaluation Of A Joint Cognitive System For 4d Trajectory Management, Rolf Klomp, Clark Borst, Max Mulder, Gesa Praetorius, Martijn Moij

Gesa Praetorius

Effective joint human-automation coordination is essential in order to support the central role of the human operator in foreseen future trajectory-based air traffic operations. The SESAR WP-E project C-SHARE aims to achieve this by taking a Cognitive Systems Engineering approach, based upon accomplishing joint human and automation cognition through a shared representation of 4D-trajectory management. In foregoing research, a work domain model and a joint human-machine interface has been developed to support the human operator in the task of en-route 4D trajectory re-planning. This paper presents the findings of two experiments that aimed to determine the effect of both the …

Communicating Intended Routes In Ecdis: Evaluating Technological Change, Thomas Porathe, Margareta Lützhöft, Gesa Praetorius

Gesa Praetorius

Misunderstanding each other's intentions is one of the most common causes of shipping accidents. By sending out a number of waypoints ahead and displaying them on the Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS) a ship's intentions would be clearly visible for other ships. Displaying ships’ intentions would be a major change compared to navigation today. It could be very beneficial but it could also have unintended consequences. This paper reports on findings from an evaluation looking for unintended consequences of change using system simulation. During the simulation an unanticipated behavior was observed. Bridge crews started to click and drag …

An Ergonomic Evaluation Of Aircraft Pilot Seats, Yolanda Nicole Andrade

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Seat comfort has become increasingly important in today's society as we spend more time at consoles, instrument panels, or just online. However, seat comfort is hard to define and difficult to measure. Several measures both objective and subjective were used to evaluate seat comfort in commercially available average pilot seats. Three pilot seats, which had the same material and similar adjustments but different physical attributes, and a universal classroom seat, with different material and no adjustments, were compared by 20 volunteers using subjective and objective measures in a Latin square controlled repeated measures design. A Friedman's test was used to …

Materials Education And Research In Art And Design: A New Role For Libraries (Website), Mark Pompelia

Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries

No abstract provided.

Materials Education And Research In Art And Design: A New Role For Libraries (Program Sheet), Mark Pompelia

Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries

No abstract provided.

Materials Education And Research In Art And Design: A New Role For Libraries (Program Booklet), Mark Pompelia

Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries

No abstract provided.

Materials Education And Research In Art And Design: A New Role For Libraries (Survey Stats), Mark Pompelia

Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries

No abstract provided.

Materials Collection Creation And Administration: A New Role For Libraries (White Paper), Mark Pompelia

Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries

The Problem/Opportunity: To define, identify, and guide design-based materials collections in academic settings and foster community among those with existing collections and/or those considering creating and supporting one.

Contents and topics:

1. What is a materials collection?
2. Why have a materials collection?
3. Acquisition strategies
4. Organizational approaches
5. Programming possibilities
6. Symposium summary
7. Resources

Lunalight - Bringing Light To The Expanding World, Gabriela M. Igel, Daniel J. Patrick, Kimberley M. Smith

Materials Engineering

The LunaLight, a solar rechargeable light and cell phone charger, addresses the lack of access to electricity faced by 1.4 billion of the world’s population (International Finance Corporation). The LunaTech team has developed a product that is bright, simple, compact, versatile and competitive with existing products. Through a partnership with the non-profit organization One Million Lights, LunaTech has improved a previous team’s design to address user feedback, concerns of durability, and manufacturability.

The LunaLight design includes a 5 component plastic housing held together by 4 screws, a surface mounted PCB, a lithium-ion (Li-Ion) battery, one high-brightness LED, a solar panel, …

“Under Dangerous Conditions” – Safety Construction And Safety-Related Work Onboard Of Merchant Vessels, Gesa Praetorius, Monica Lundh

Gesa Praetorius

The following paper presents findings from a qualitative study conducted on board of two merchant vessels. Interviews and observations have been used to obtain insights in how safety is defined and promoted by the personnel working on board. The merchant vessel, the crew and the single mariner are identified to be part of a socio-technical system displaying three levels of system aggregation; person-centred, crew-centred, and vessel-centred. The common ground of a crew, an overlap of the individual mariners’ experience and knowledge, is identified as a basis for trust and predictability of action on board, which is a necessity to be …

A Decision Support Model For The Location Of Hand Sanitizer Dispensers In Hospitals, Laila Cure

Laila Cure

Compliance with hand hygiene practices is directly affected by the accessibility and availability of cleaning agents. Nevertheless, the decision of where to locate these dispensers is often not explicitly or fully addressed in the literature. In this paper, we study the problem of selecting the locations to install alcohol-based hand sanitizer dispensers throughout a hospital unit. We investigate the relevant criteria in selecting dispenser locations that promote compliance with hand hygiene practices, propose metrics for the evaluation of various location configurations, and formulate a dispenser location optimization model that incorporates such criteria. A complete methodology to collect data and obtain …

Level Of Agreement In The Mental Models Of Human Factors Practitioners And Systems Engineers Working In Collaborative Teams, Jerry A. Gordon

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Emerging research in complexity science recognizes traditional techniques for engineering systems do not always work for complex systems. Designing complex systems requires individuals to have knowledge of engineering as well as human performance. To this end, design efforts rely often on multi-disciplinary teams. While any two members of a design team may view the system design problem in vastly different manners, this study sought to identify a possible systemic effect on approach by the differing education and experience obtained by social practitioners, represented by human factors, and technical practitioners, represented by systems engineers. It further examined the impact of the …

An Investigation Of Medical Device Design And Physical Ergonomics In Healthcare, Adam E. De Laveaga

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Human factors and process engineering are becoming a prominent area of research and application for industrial engineering principles as healthcare providers seek to improve patient safety, quality the optimization of resources. Human factors engineering and ergonomics play a crucial role in the pursuit of operational excellence and patient safety in healthcare. These disciplines contain the tools required to develop instrumentation, technology and training that can improve the usability of medical technology and the quality of care that patients receive. Designing tasks, tools and processes for optimal human use can enhance performance, reduce errors and improve safety. This thesis encompasses three …

Improving Health Care Quality And Safety: The Development And Assessment Of Laparoscopic Surgery Instrumentation, Practices And Procedures, Bernadette Mccrory

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Adverse events due to medical errors are a leading cause of death in the United States exceeding the mortality rates of motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer and AIDS. Improvements can and should be made to reduce the rates of preventable surgical errors since they account for nearly half of all adverse events within hospitals. Although minimally invasive surgery has proven patient benefits such as reduced postoperative pain and hospital stay, its operative environment imposes substantial physical and cognitive strain on the surgeon increasing the risk of error. In order to mitigate errors and protect patients, a multidisciplinary approach was taken …

Ergonomics Evaluation Of Task Demands Among Kitchen Staff, Jaqueline Pereira Da Silva

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the workplace demands faced by a group of kitchen staff at six dining centers and to survey musculoskeletal complaints among this sample of workers. The dining centers were located in six different public elementary and middle schools in a city in the south of Brazil. This research was developed following qualitative research design, and the researcher made use of the “Activity Oriented Ergonomics (AOE) methodology.

The AOE focuses on the work analysis that evaluates real work situations that allows a reassessment of work demands. In this case the chosen methodology was a …

Leaving The Lecture Hall: Conducting Hf/E Outside The Classroom, C. B. Fausset, K. R. Bujak, K. A. Kline, Jenay Beer, C.-A. Smarr, A. E. Adams, S. E. Mcbride, J. S. Burnett

Faculty Publications

Georgia Tech HF/E students initiated and managed a multisemester project to experience the nuances of conducting HF/E outside the classroom setting. This article focuses on the lessons learned beyond the classroom: project management, team coordination, communication with non-HF/E team members, application of research methods, and integration of data to prioritize and guide design changes. The goal of this article is to help guide other HF/E students and educators when implementing similar projects by providing the lessons we learned from this experience.

Learning Lessons In Resilient Traffic Management: A Cross-Domain Study Of Vessel Traffic Service (Vts) And Air Traffic Control (Atc), Gesa Praetorius, Fulko Van Westrenen, Deborah Mitchell, Erik Hollnagel

Gesa Praetorius

Although younger than the maritime domain, aviation has had a huge impact on the system design and development within shipping. Stakeholders often look towards aviation to make shipping, and the way that traffic is handled and organised, safer, more efficient and more effective. Although legally not the same, Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) is frequently compared to Air Traffic Control (ATC). In this article the area of traffic management within the maritime and aviation domains is addressed from a Resilience Engineering perspective. Focus is placed on the arrival part of a mission. The comparison is based on information collected during two …