Validation of Ergonomic Improvements to a Shipping Workstation

A shipping workstation was analyzed by doing detailed task analysis from video tape. The analysis showed an excessive number of damaging wrist motions left and right, high force pinch grips left and right, extreme right shoulder abduction, extreme neck flexion and extreme back flexion. Solutions were developed to address the causes. The new design was validated. It was found that it eliminated the high force pinch grips, extreme shoulder abduction and extreme back flexion as well as reducing cycle time by 12%. However, it failed to solve the excessive number of damaging wrist motions and extreme neck flexion and introduced extreme shoulder flexion. New solutions were developed. The next validation proved successful. This study demonstrates the importance of a methodology that includes a validation step. Without validation, the new workstation would not have been much better than the old one.