AN EASY-TO-USE PARTICIPATIVE VIDEO-COMPUTER METHOD FOR ERGONOMIC EVALUATION OF COMPLEX WORK

VIDAR is a participative video-based method for ergonomic assessments. An employee is first videorecorded when performing his/her daily work. He/she then does an assessment of physically and psychologically demanding situations. In this project we have developed a new version of VIDAR, which runs with a (mobile) PC and a digital camcorder (DV). Three different ways of using the method were compared in each of three case studies. In each of the three ways the film is played and the employee(s) identify demanding situations. The three different ways of usage were: a person sees a film of himself/herself in work, a person sees someone else in work, a group sees someone in work. The case studies showed that the new version of VIDAR is useful in various branches. The practitioners agreed that the group analysis was the most time effective, that would also be their own choice of application in an other workplace analysis.