The Assembly Specific Force Atlas

Even in hi-tech industries, physical workload is partly considerable and cannot be avoided because of product and process requirements. Especially in automotive, aviation, and marine industries, the assembly of the product geometry requires force exertions in ergonomically unfavorable conditions. Unfortunately, internationally accepted methods for the evaluation of those types of force exertions are rare. Besides some traditional German methods and EN 1005-3 hardly any evaluation methods exist. Even those methods refer to force exertions in primarily upright symmetric working postures. To overcome these problems the Assembly Specific Fore Atlas was created during the recent years. From a sample of automotive workers n = 273, a set of 54 whole-body forces 6 main force directions while standing, sitting, kneeling; in an upward, bent, and overhead posture and a set of 38 types of finger-hand forces all at maximum voluntary contractions [MVC] levels were measured in the field. The inputs for the types of force exertions required in practice were sampled from a consortium of major European car and truck companies. In addition, evaluation methods were developed that allow "calculating" maximum recommended force limits from the measured maximum static forces i.e., MVC and task and user group relevant parameters. This contribution gives a short overview on the data collected and focuses on the evaluation methods that had been realized. First, qualitative results are presented from the first field tests.

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