Corporate-internal vs. national standard – A comparison study of two ergonomics evaluation procedures used in automotive manufacturing
Journal article, 2009

Manufacturing corporations sometimes use corporate-internal procedures to evaluate and monitor the ergonomic status of the workplace. This article describes an industrial case study in the Swedish automotive sector, where an internally developed evaluation procedure was compared with a procedure based on a Swedish national standard provision. It was found that the national standard procedure tended to give more severe ratings and statistical support shows that the two evaluation procedures are not equivalent. The ability of the methods to identify body segments at risk was also compared. The quantitative comparison was followed up with interviews, where the influence of professional tasks and objectives became evident, as well as the fact that evaluation criteria are quantified differently by the two procedures. The main finding is that unforeseen differences in analysis procedure, criteria of acceptability and levels of detail can cause use-related difficulties for different professional groups when methods are used interchangeably.

Comparison case study

National ergonomics standards

Automotive manufacturing

Ergonomics evaluation methods

Physical ergonomics

Production ergonomics

Author

Cecilia Berlin

Chalmers, Product and Production Development, Production Systems

Roland Örtengren

Chalmers, Product and Production Development, Production Systems

Dan Lämkull

Chalmers, Product and Production Development, Production Systems

Lars Hanson

Lund University

International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics

0169-8141 (ISSN) 18728219 (eISSN)

Vol. 39 6 940-946

Subject Categories

Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics

Other Mechanical Engineering

DOI

10.1016/j.ergon.2009.06.005

More information

Latest update

3/2/2018 9