NIOSHTIC-2 Publications Search

Comparison of ergonomic risk assessment outputs from Rapid Upper Limb Assessment and the Strain Index for tasks in automotive assembly plants.

Drinkaus P; Sesek R; Bloswick D; Bernard T; Walton B; Joseph B; Reeve G; Counts JH

Work 2003 Sep/Oct; 21(2):165-172

http://content.iospress.com/articles/work/wor00317

20037553

This paper compares the ergonomic risk assessment of a task for the upper extremities as determined by Rapid Upper Extremity Assessment (RULA) and the Strain Index (SI). The ergonomic risk to the upper extremities of 244 automotive assembly plant tasks were evaluated using RULA and SI. The outcomes of each tool were compared for each task. Results from this study provide practical insight into the methods used in each tool. This study compared only the ergonomic risk outputs from each tool; it does not pursue the question of which tool best predicts injury. The kappa score was 0.11, indicating little agreement between the outputs of the two tools. This is supported by the lack of monotonicity with a gamma score of 0.1. These results indicate that the risk assessment outcome of these two ergonomic assessment tools for the upper extremities do not agree.

Ergonomics; Risk-analysis; Extremities; Musculoskeletal-system-disorders; Automotive-industry; Assembly-line-workers; Industrial-equipment; Industrial-factory-workers; Risk-factors; Human-factors-engineering; Analytical-instruments; Author Keywords: RULA; strain index; ergonomics

Donald S. Bloswick, Ph.D., P.E., CPE, Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah, 50 S Central Campus Drive RM 2110, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-9208

WORKFK

20030901

Journal Article

bloswick@eng.utah.edu

Grant

2003

Grant-Number-T42-OH-008414

2

1051-9815

Work

UT; FL; MI

University of Utah