Ergonomic design and industrial testing of the televised assembly and manual material handling workstations with indirect observation of operations

Many workers at assembly and material handling operations are suffering various RSI's. The most typical RSI's are of neck, shoulders, wrists, and back. A new type of assembly and material handling workstations was designed. Instead of conventional direct observation of the operations requiring bending neck, lifting arms, flexing wrists, I suggested workstations with indirect observation of manual operations at TV screen. The workstations allow a straight neutral work position of neck and body, neutral position of arms with possible negative tilt of work surface (as well as positive and zero tilt), and large magnification of printed circuit board or any product handled manually. Industrial tests at Nortel Calgary Plant during 45 days with participation of 12 workers showed the same or higher productivity was reached with straight work posture and lower muscle strain (EMG).