Proceedings of a NIOSH Workshop, “A Strategy for Industrial Power Hand Tool Ergonomic Research – Design, Selection, Installation, and Use in Automotive Manufacturing.”

A workshop on power hand tool research for the automotive manufacturing industry was held January 13 and 14, 1994 in Cincinnati, Ohio by NIOSH. The workshop addressed the following areas of concern: power hand tool design and usage, research and development, elimination of research and development redundancy, and necessary research priorities. The participants agreed that there is a lack of epidemiological data relating hand tool use to specific workers or worker populations, that there is a lack of good exposure/response data, and that the data is limited on the relationship between power tools use and risk factors including repetition, force, posture, vibration, and contact stresses. They concluded that an improved epidemiological data system could assist in determining how to reduce risk by evaluating exposure and response relationships between tool use and work related musculoskeletal disorders, by providing useful information for improving tool design, by helping to optimize tool application, and by providing improved criteria for tool purchasing and acquisition.

Proceedings of a NIOSH Workshop, “A Strategy for Industrial Power Hand Tool Ergonomic Research – Design, Selection, Installation, and Use in Automotive Manufacturing.”