Martin G. Helander

Safety hazards and motivation for safe work in the construction industry

This paper analyzes statistics of fatalities and injuries in construction work. Construction work is much more hazardous than most other occupations. Most accidents involve falls of persons and occur during work on roofs, scaffolds and ladders. Collapse of structures and falling materials also account for many fatalities. Many of these accidents can be avoided by the establishment of procedures and regulations to enhance safety. Many of the safety hazards are specific to the different job classification, and typically construction workers underestimate the hazards in their own work. This affects the motivation for adopting safe work procedures. The cost of construction accidents amounts to about 6% of total building costs. There are hence forceful monetary incentives in construction safety. Hopefully, these will encourage the industry as well as agencies to invest in this area. There are several urgent needs for research.

Cost effectiveness of ergonomics and quality improvements in electronics manufacturing

Abstract This paper describes the increasing emphasis on ergonomics in the manufacturing plants of IBM. Since 1978, 250,000 engineering hours have been devoted to ergonomics training. As a result a systematic approach to ergonomics improvement of manufacturing facilities has been implemented. This involves an analysis of the production environment including equipment, processes, ambient factors and job procedures. Information is collected through interviews of management, operators, and first-line supervisions, and complemented thorough field measurements of ergonomic parameters. Individual workstations as well as processes are analyzed with the purpose of modifying processes, reallocating tasks between automated devices and human operators and optimizing workstation design. Four case studies of industrial improvements are presented and analyzed in terms of improved productivity, quality, and reduction of injuries. All four studies proved to be good investments. Since its implementation around 1978, it is estimated that ergonomics improvements have resulted in cost savings of approximately

A field study of productivity improvements in the manufacturing of circuit boards

130 million.

Effects of two types of chairs on stature change and comfort for individuals with healthy and herniated discs

Abstract This paper describes the results of an ergonomics field study in a manufacturing environment. The study was performed primarily to improve the manufacturing yield in the production of electronic circuit board panels. A secondary objective was to improve operator comfort and job satisfaction. The project combined ergonomics and productivity assessments of several different tasks using analysis methodology such as ergonomic check lists, predetermined time and motion study operator assessment of ergonomic interventions and the rate of absenteeism. The project revealed a

Hypertext and its Implications for the Internet

1.7 million saving for modification costs of

Ergonomics and safety considerations in the design of robotics workplaces: A review and some priorities for research

16,000. This implies a hundred-fold rate of return of invested funds.

Evaluating the influence of interface styles and multiple access paths in hypertext

The objective of this study was to determine if stature change and perceived comfort are significantly different for individuals with either healthy or herniated discs when seated in a conventional chair or a sit-stand chair. Sixteen subjects were studied (5 young/healthy, 6 old/healthy, 5 old/herniated). Subjects performed a search task on a computer screen during two 2 h sessions for two consecutive days, with a different chair each day. Changes in stature were measured with a stadiometer. General comfort and body parts discomfort rating scales were administered every 30 min. The main findings were: (1) for all subjects, the sit-stand chair produces less height loss than the conventional chair; and (2) for both chairs, subjects with herniated discs lost more height than subjects with healthy discs. A positive correlation was observed for height loss and age with the sit-stand chair. Subjects with herniated discs felt relatively more uncomfortable in the conventional chair and more comfortable in the sit-stand chair compared to subjects with healthy discs. Both old healthy and young healthy subjects felt more comfortable in the conventional chair in comparison to the sit-stand chair. But, old healthy subjects had a relatively greater perception of comfort in the conventional chair compared with the younger subjects.

Systems Design for Automated Speech Recognition

Publisher Summary Hypertext is intended to overcome the artificiality of index-based systems of storage and retrieval by providing computer-supported links among related pieces of information. In hypertext, the information is divided over several pieces of text and the related pieces are connected by links. By doing so, hypertext permits non-sequential (or non-linear) associative mode of information access and provides a method of accessing information that is more direct and more immediate than possible in a conventional paper-based system of information storage. Hypermedia is essentially multimedia hypertext. That is, the nodes are not limited to textual information but can have graphics, sound, animation, and video. Hypertext and hypermedia are often distinguished, with hypertext referring to text-only systems and hypermedia referring to systems that support multiple media.

A Model of Human Reaction Time to Dangerous Robot Arm Movements

This paper reviews research on safety and ergonomics in robot workplaces. In the planning of function allocation between robots and human operators, several criteria must be taken into consideration. These include productivity, job satisfaction, and safety. This planning must begin at the early stage of product design where the choice of manufacturing method must be scrutinized to achieve an optimal allocation. An analysis of accidents shows that most fatalities have occured with the robot approaching unseen from behind or above. This has implications for the design of the workstation and the choice of safety equipment. The most critical aspect is the moving robot arm. Further research is needed to understand the perceptibility of arm movements. Research on sensors that can shut off the equipment in hazardous situations is summarized. Six research ideas are proposed: (1) the establishment of a databank for accident analysis; (2) field studies of design requirements of robotics workplaces; (3) perception of robot arm movement; (4) teach pendant design; (5) function allocation between humans and robots; and (6) development of a transponder safety sensor.

A systems approach to task allocation of human-robot interaction in manufacturing

No specific guidelines exist to assist in designing usable hypertext systems. In this paper, we discuss three experiments to study usability issues in hypertext design. In the first experiment, we investigated usability of four types of hypertext interfaces: graphical with labeled links (GL), graphical with unlabeled links (GU), textual with embedded links (TE), and textual with a separate list of related items/links (TS). The results favored GL interface for novice users. However, most subjects suggested incorporating multiple access pathways to facilitate search. To determine how hypertext designers could establish, a priori, these multiple structures, we extracted organization schemes from domain experts in the second experiment. Distinctly different organization structures emerged from experts with different professional backgrounds. Therefore, we modified the hypertext to incorporate multiple organization structures. In experiment 3, we compared subjects’ performance using multiple and single organization structures. Multiple structures, contrary to previous evidence, enhanced search performance. The benefits of multiple structures, however, diminished over time. These experiments provide empirical evidence in favor of GL interfaces and incorporation of multiple organization structures to improve hypertext usability.