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BACKGROUND: The aging of the workforce is changing, but working conditions have not changed at the same exponential growth rate for senior workers. Such a situation can compromise the worker’s physical and cognitive capability, reducing the ability to perform work activities. OBJECTIVES: This study aims to understand the main functional capacity changes in senior workers in the automotive industry and to determine the contribution of working conditions on the decline of the functional capacity in senior workers. METHODS: To achieve the objectives of the study, a set of questionnaires (Sociodemographic Data, COPSOQ, Nordic Questionnaire, and Par-Q) and a battery of 4 functional capacity tests were used. Results: Work conditions, namely awkward postures, force demands and manual material handling, and age, were statistically associated to the functional decline in workers. Additionally, multiple linear regression showed that height, weight, seniority, and strength have predictive value to the handgrip decline (both positions HG2 and HG5). CONCLUSION: These results suggest that workers’ handgrip assessment should be considered as a future measure as an indicator of strength ability in the occupational field.

Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG. There is a significant interest to evaluate the occupational exposure that manufacturing operators are subjected throughout the working day. The objective evaluation of occupational exposure with direct measurements and the need for automatic annotation of relevant events arose. The current work proposes the use of a self similarity matrix (SSM) as a tool to flag events that may be of importance to be analyzed by ergonomic teams. This way, data directly retrieved from the work environment will be summarized and segmented into sub-sequences of interest over a multi-timescale approach. The process occurs under 3 timescale levels: Active working periods, working cycles, and in-cycle activities. The novelty function was used to segment non-active and active working periods with an F1-score of 95%. while the similarity function was used to correctly segment 98% of working cycle with a duration error of 6.12%. In addition, this method was extended into examples of multi time scale segmentation with the intent of providing a summary of a time series as well as support in data labeling tasks, by means of a query-by-example process to detect all subsequences. authorsversion published

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s) Job rotation is a work organization strategy with increasing popularity, given its benefits for workers and companies, especially those working with manufacturing. This study proposes a formulation to help the team leader in an assembly line of the automotive industry to achieve job rotation schedules based on three major criteria: improve diversity, ensure homogeneity, and thus reduce exposure level. The formulation relied on a genetic algorithm, that took into consideration the biomechanical risk factors (EAWS), workers’ qualifications, and the organizational aspects of the assembly line. Moreover, the job rotation plan formulated by the genetic algorithm formulation was compared with the solution provided by the team leader in a real life-environment. The formulation proved to be a reliable solution to design job rotation plans for increasing diversity, decreasing exposure, and balancing homogeneity within workers, achieving better results in all of the outcomes when compared with the job rotation schedules created by the team leader. Additionally, this solution was less time-consuming for the team leader than a manual implementation. This study provides a much-needed solution to the job rotation issue in the manufacturing industry, with the genetic algorithm taking less time and showing better results than the job rotations created by the team leaders. publishersversion published

Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRD) have a high prevalence among office workers, which is even worsen with the current shift to home working office. Tools to assess their work setup in order to create awareness and reduce ergonomic risks are in need. There are tools available that allow ergonomic risk assessment to be carried out in a quantitative and qualitative way. However, quantitative tools require specialists’ collaboration, while qualitative tools do not provide a quantification of risk and do not consider other variables, such as social and psychosocial factors. In this sense, we introduce the concept of a self-assessment tool, named microErgo, that calculates the risk of developing pain or WRD based on ergonomic exposure for its prevention and promoting self-awareness. This tool’s construction requires an understanding and determination of the risk factors present in the office scenario. The risk associated with each factor must be considered and modeled by additional variables, such as individual characteristics or psychosocial. The final ergonomic risk is calculated by combining all sources of risk and transcribing it into a microErgo scale. microErgo is a concept to build an easy-to-use tool that combines existing ergonomic models with statistical data to calculate the risk of developing pain or WRD based on completing a self-assessment questionnaire and provide recommendations based on the risks identified.

The industrial site, particularly assembly lines, encompass repetitive labour processes which are considered an ergonomic risk factor for the onset of musculoskeletal disorders. Direct assessments methods promote faster ergonomic feedback, supporting the development of sustainable working conditions. This work presents an upper-body motion tracker framework using inertial sensors to provide direct measurements for ergonomics research. An experimental assessment performed by 14 subjects was completed in order to evaluate the joint angle reconstruction of the proposed method while using the measures of an optical motion capture system as reference. This study investigated the results of three distinct complementary sensor fusion techniques, namely the quaternion-based complementary filter, the Mahony filter and the Madgwick filter. Furthermore, foreseeing the possibility of magnetic disturbance in industrial environments, a comparison was conducted between methods that use magnetic data, i.e. 9-axis, and other inertial-based approaches that do not require magnetic information, i.e. 6-axis. A quantitative analysis was performed using two metrics, the cumulative distribution function and the root-mean-square error, hence, providing an evaluation for the different sensor fusion approaches. The overall results suggest that the 9-axis Madgwick filter although noisier presents a more accurate angular reconstruction.

Exoskeletons are an innovation that have been increasingly explored in various fields. In fact, industries are one sector that have been investing in the studies of this new equipment to answer the unnecessary efforts made by the operators, where technical and organizational measures implemented are not enough to reduce the risk exposure to demanding working conditions. Hence, a study was conducted to understand the operator’s perceptions in the workplace regarding the use of a low back passive exoskeleton (Laevo). Ease of performing the different tasks with the use of the exoskeleton, ease of use, discomfort, perceived effort with and without the use of this equipment, acceptance, usability, and intention to use it, were the parameters assessed in this study. The exoskeleton was tested in 3 workstations, by a total of 23 workers during tasks that required trunk flexion, manual material handling or both in an automotive industry. The goal was to develop a pilot test, study the participants' perceptions and opinions, and conclude whether the exoskeletons are ready for the industrial context in non-cyclic processes.

AimThis study aims to identify the normative values of handgrip strength for Portuguese workers in the automotive industry.MethodsAbout 1225 employees were invited to participate in the study. The final sample consisted of 656 employees in the assembly area. The handgrip strength was measured in kilograms (kg) using the Jamar digital dynamometer. Two measurements were performed in both hands, totaling four measurements. For the present study, the maximum value was recorded regardless of the hand.Resultsshowed the peak mean values of handgrip strength in the group of women was 34 kg in the age group of 35-39 years, and the group of men the peak mean was 52 kg in the age group of 25-34 years. The most pronounced decline in the female group appears in the age of 30-34 years with 30 kg and the men group the decline occurs of 2kg below the peak force, in the age group between the 40-57 years. This study used a cut-off at 2 SD below by the sex-specific peak mean.ConclusionNormative values can help delineate the career path of workers because they portray risk values according to age, height, and gender. And they can also help in adjusting the morphological and strength characteristics of the worker with the task to be performed, as an example of work above head level.Key MessagesThe handgrip strength is a general indicator of muscle strength, in addition to being closely related to cardiovascular and nutritional diseases. Also, this measure is one of the keys to defining sarcopenia.One of the main findings of the study was found in the group of women aged 30-34 years, with a significant decline in handgrip strength compared to other age groups. Furthermore, the present study, established for the first time, normative values for the handgrip strength of Portuguese workers in the automotive industry.The handgrip strength decline is a crucial predictor of frailty syndrome, and sarcopenia can be checked by the occupational medicine department, individually, by the risk threshold outcomes presents in this study. Also, it is possible to design the conditions work processes associated with the predictive values of HG2 and HG5 and the implementation of the workers’ clinical surveillance system through periodic tests of handgrip strength.

The exoskeletons are being developed and recommended worldwide as wearable devices that could be used by workers exposed to demanding working conditions, such as overhead work. Many studies, designed for laboratory research, have been carried out so far and most of them came to the same kind of conclusions. With these findings it is expected that user acceptance (UA) and intention of use (IU) would not be a concern. This study was designed to assess UA and IU of an upper limb exoskeleton, Skelex MARK 1.3®, in a group of workstations, where technical and organizational measures implemented were not enough to reduce the exposure risk to overhead work and/or work above shoulder level, from an automotive industry assembly line. The exoskeleton was tested in 6 workstations, by 88 workers, during 4 consecutive weeks, since UA and IU are influenced by factors which only exist in real working scenarios.

In automotive industries, the manufacturing processes are characterized by repetitive tasks and physically demanding work, with possible long-term implications on the musculoskeletal health of the workers. One key organizational strategy that provides an improvement in the prevention of musculoskeletal disorders are job rotation schedules. These are usually designed manually, being (1) time demanding and (2) a subjective evaluation of the schedule’s risk. In this work, a genetic algorithm is presented, to generate automatically a daily job rotation schedule. The quality of the schedule is based on objective scores as- signed to workstations by the European Assembly Worksheet (EAWS) risk screening tool, guiding the algorithm in reaching a final solution that promotes schedules with lower exposure to the sequence of workstations assigned to each worker of the team. The schedules generated by the algorithm were compared to schedules designed by the team leaders and presented a better overall result.