Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Great South Metals: Slitter Head Building Process, Nabhan Karim, Evan Swierski, Raven Morin, Patrick Kelsey, Michael Williams

Senior Design Project For Engineers

Great South Metals (GSM) operates two steel slitter machines, which take large coils of flat rolled steel and cut them into smaller strips for use in customers’ applications. Setting up the working components of each machine, called the slitter head, is a precise and arduous task. This system relies on several manually performed calculations and acute attention to detail; and thus, is prone to human error. The management at GSM commissioned our team to simplify the slitter head assembly process by creating an automated computer program and make additional recommendations to improve their operations.

The program we created is a …

Kitchen Ergonomics In Health And Healthcare: A Rapid Scoping Review, Haozhi Chen, Nicholas Anton, Richard J. Holden, Denny Yu

Purdue University Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund

Although traditional workplace settings such as hospitals and clinics are well-studied, non-clinical areas like home kitchens, which connect clinical healthcare with the care provided in daily living settings, have received less attention. During the early stages of the global pandemic, there has been an increase in home cooking activities due to widespread isolation and restrictions imposed on dining publicly. Ergonomics is at the intersection between work environments and human task performance, and kitchen ergonomics informs knowledge on effective, safe, and efficient cooking practices while maintaining the desired kitchen functionality. Numerous contributions across various disciplines have added knowledge to the kitchen …

The Effects Of Blue Light From Digital Displays On Visual Fatigue, Victor Taboadela

Theses

With the ever-increasing viewing time of digital displays, the potential effects of blue light emitted from these displays on eye health and eye fatigue are a real concern. This study presents a literature review of six laboratory studies conducted between 2014 and 2022 on the effect of using filters to attenuate the harmful effects of blue light. The review delves into smartphone and computer screen effects, recent literature reviews on blue light, and potential hazards associated with short-wavelength light. Although the majority of the studies recommended blue light filters, only three of the six laboratory studies (Shi et al. 2021, …

Passive Vs. Active Wearable Technology Monitoring Trunk Flexion In Elementary Teachers, Bailey Jose

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this study was to assess the biomechanical and subjective measures of elementary school teachers while wearing active and/or passive wearable devices during the average workday. Five elementary school teachers wore a harness that held an Upright GO 2 posture tracking device and a Vicon Blue Trident sensor on the participant's upper back for two school days. Haptic feedback was on for one day and off for the other. Data from the Vicon wearable was analyzed to determine participants’ trunk flexion severity, frequency, and duration. Surveys were used to determine perceived exertion and perception of wearable technology. This …

Welding Personal Protective Equipment: Survey, Interview, And Anthropometric Measurement Study, Kaitlin Neville

Open Access Master's Theses

Abstract contains CUI and cannot be viewed online.

The Business Case For Industrial Safety: Revealing The Comprehensive Value Of Ergonomic Investments For Manufacturing Enterprises In Industry 4.0, Shane Stan

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

How can today’s manufacturing enterprises construct, implement, and optimize modern safety initiatives in a manner that will present maximum return on investment and facilitate enterprise growth? Furthermore, how can these manufacturers assure individual ergonomic investments become part of a larger strategy to facilitate organizational change in safety? This work addresses these questions by placing industrial ergonomics in a business improvement context which comprehensively presents the financial returns and growth opportunities poised by modern safety initiatives. Additionally, to further strengthen the business case for industrial safety, an ergonomic action planning framework is established to guide the creation of holistic safety programs …

Atlas Copco Mafi-Trench Co. Inventory Management, Logan E. Barr, Sean P. Mcgaffigan

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This Senior Project Report includes three areas of focus pertaining to the inventory management practices of Atlas Copco Mafi-Trench Company (ACMTC) - cycle counting, ergonomics, and material purchasing. Various literature reviews as well as an analysis of the current state led to the project objectives. First, reduce time spent on the non-value added process of cycle counting. Second, eliminate the ergonomic hazard presented by the heavy inventory bins. Lastly, diminish the totals costs associated with inventory (ordering + carrying). The project objectives spurred numerous alternatives and a few specific deliverables. The creation of a ‘Small Parts Cycle Count’ Excel file …

Improving Efficiencies For The Loading And Packaging Departments At San Luis Sourdough, Alexis Bergstrom, Isabella Pereira, Claudia Robinson

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

San Luis Sourdough, currently has issues with efficiency and standardization in their packaging department, ergonomics problems in the packaging department, shipment accuracy in their loading department, and lacks an organized layout design. As a result, four objectives were designed within a six month period. The first was to create standard operating procedures for the packaging department. To inform this decision time studies were performed before and after creating these SOPs. It was discovered that there was a clear need for the SOPs due to variation in packaging efficiency among new and experienced associates. The second set of time studies showed …

Developing An Ergonomic Model And Automation Justification For Industrial Spraying Operations: A Case Study, Anthony Woods

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Industrial spraying tasks prove to be some of the most dull, dirty, and dangerous jobs in the modern day. Although it is a ripe area for automation, justification methods do not typically account for the potential improvements in the ergonomics of a task from automating it. In addition, there is a gap in the ergonomics literature in formal methodologies to comprehensively evaluate an industrial spraying task ergonomically, including all relevant musculoskeletal elements. This research focuses on first developing a formal, comprehensive methodology for ergonomically evaluating industrial spraying tasks and attaining a final classification of the ergonomic ranking of the task. …

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 …

Safety, Ergonomics And Human Factors Engineering On Biomedical Devices Design, Alejandra Sandoval Vazquez^, Noe Vargas Hernandez*

COURI Symposium Abstracts, Spring 2012

No abstract provided.

Assessing Living Arrangements In Residential Halls, Romel Penaflor Auza

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Hundreds of thousands of high school graduates head off to college each fall not knowing the environment they'll be living in for the next four years. The factors that predict success in the academic, social, and personal aspect of these freshmen students' lives revolves around one aspect that is often times overlooked. Freshmen students are subjected to the fast paced lifestyle of college and often times they need to feel “at home”. Their personal space becomes a matter that is important to them in relation to their success in the three aspects of academic success, social integration, and personal health. …

Task Analysis, Modeling, And Automatic Identification Of Elemental Tasks In Robot-Assisted Laparoscopic Surgery, Lavie Pinchas Golenberg

Wayne State University Dissertations

Robotic microsurgery provides many advantages for surgical operations, including tremor filtration, an increase in dexterity, and smaller incisions. There is a growing need for a task analyses on robotic laparoscopic operations to understand better the tasks involved in robotic microsurgery cases. A few research groups have conducted task observations to help systems automatically identify surgeon skill based on task execution. Their gesture analyses, however, lacked depth and their class libraries were composed of ambiguous groupings of gestures that did not share contextual similarities.

A Hierarchical Task Analysis was performed on a four-throw suturing task using a robotic microsurgical platform. Three …

Retention And Productivity In Industrial Search And Scan Tasks, Camilo Aguilera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

An experiment was developed in order to study the interaction between individual factors (gender and mood) and the retention ability in search and scan activities. 54 subjects between 18 and 30 years old participated in a computer-based memory test from the North of Mexico area. A full factorial design was used to analyze the variables. Two factors, one with two levels (gender: male and female), and the second factor with three levels (mood: positive, neutral, and negative) were used in the analysis. The output was measured as the amount of characters memorized in a string of random alphanumeric characters. Data …

Physical Ergonomic And Mental Workload Factors Of Mobile Learning Affecting Performance Of Adult Distance Learners: Student Pers, Rochelle Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Distance education is the fastest growing educational modality because of advances information technology has made over the past 25 years. Adult learners have become the fastest growing population in distance education. Adult learners, through technical tools and devices they use on the job, have become more digitally literate and mobile, making the ability to access class work on the go a necessity. Mobile learning or m-learning (learning that uses wireless, portable, mobile computing, and communication devices) is becoming an extension of distance learning, providing a channel for students to learn, communicate, and access educational material outside the traditional classroom environment. …

Improving Business Performance Through The Integration Of Human Factors Engineering Into Organizations Using A Systems Engineeri, Monica Philippart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Most organizations today understand the valuable contribution employees as people (rather than simply bodies) provide to their overall performance. Although efforts are made to make the most of the human in organizations, there is still much room for improvement. Focus in the reduction of employee injuries such as cumulative trauma disorders rose in the 80 s. Attempts at increasing performance by addressing employee satisfaction through various methods have also been ongoing for several years now. Knowledge Management is one of the most recent attempts at controlling and making the best use of employees knowledge. All of these efforts and more …