• 대한인간공학회지
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• 제22권1호
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• pp.43-56
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• 2003

Observational methods such as OWAS, RULA, and REBA have been widely used to identify posture-related risks of musculoskeletal disorders in industry, since they are useful and efficient in evaluating postural stresses. However. there are few studies comparing the methods and providing guidelines for selecting and using the methods. They have been developed based on different backgrounds and with different application areas. Each method has its own characteristics. which must be considered in selecting and using them. In this study. 17 male subjects evaluated 42 different working postures that frequently assumed in the automobile assembly line using a psychophysical method. The postures were then evaluated by different observational methods. The results of the observational methods were compared with psychophysically evaluated stresses. The observational methods resulted in different values of stresses for certain postures. For some postures showing high values of perceived discomfort. the observational methods showed different values of stresses. These results showed that the observational methods should be used differently according to application area and they have some weak points to be improved.

• 대한산업공학회지
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• 제31권4호
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• pp.289-296
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• 2005

This study aims to measure maximum holding times(MHTs) of symmetric and asymmetric whole body postures, and to compare three representative observational methods including OWAS, RULA, REBA, based on the MHTs. An experiment was conducted for obtaining the MHTs, in which hand position was used as experimental variable, and the MHT and subjective discomfort rating as dependent variables. The hand position was defined by the percentage of the shoulder height(%SH), the percentage of the arm reach(%AR) and rotation angle(R). The results showed that three independent variables of %SH, %AR and R significantly affected on the MHTs at ${\alpha}$=0.01, and that the MHTs were negatively linearly related to the discomfort scores of Borg CR10. It was also revealed that OWAS and REBA were less sensitive to postural stress than RULA. In addition, OWAS and REBA underestimated postural load of given postures compared to RULA. Therefore, it is recommended that among the three observational methods investigated in this study, RULA be used for a more precise evaluation of postural load.

• 대한인간공학회지
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• 제29권4호
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• pp.435-444
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• 2010

To identify and evaluate the risk factors in WMSD work, a number of ergonomic workload evaluation methods have been developed. In the legal examination of WMSD risk factors, simple observational workload evaluation methods are widely used instead of using costly measurement equipments such as EMG and motion analyzer. The simple workload evaluation methods can be categorized into three groups; risk factor checklist methods, posture observation methods, and manual material handling task evaluation methods. In terms of the categories, this survey summarized several representative workload evaluation methods and compared them each other. Then some industrial application cases referring each the workload evaluation methods were surveyed. Due to the characteristics of each method, the selection and application procedure of workload evaluation method should be appropriate for the corresponding work. Therefore, some guidelines for the selection and application procedure of workload evaluation method were suggested.