Engineering approach to Workspace Design

Workspace design plays an important role in ensuringworkers safety and welfare. The issue is morepressing in the manufacturing industry where manyworkers must remain in a standing position assumeawkward postures and perform repetitive tasks forextended periods of time. In this research anelectromyographic measurement technique was used tomeasure muscle activity on four back muscles: thetrapezius p. descendenz the deltoideus p.scapularis the infraspinatus and the latissimusdorsi. The results showed a statisticallysignificant (p < 0.05) impact of left versus rightside of the body the degree of rotation to the rightside of the body (0 30 and 60 degrees rotation tothe mid-saggital plane) BMI level: (normal weight:(< 25 kg/m²) versus overweight: (? 25 kg/m²) andtasks (high versus low frequency). In this studythe role that workers and workspace variation play isclearly associated with an increase in the amplitudeof EMG at the targeted back muscles.Topics covered in this text include: . Manufacturing context issues. worker postures. Repetitive tasks. Muscle activity measurement. Body Mass Index (BMI)