Quantitative body movement and gesture assessment in ergonomics

We present a technique for the ergonomic assessment of motor tasks and postures. It is based on movement analysis and it integrates the perceived discomfort scores for joints motion and the time involvement of the different body districts. It was tested on eight subjects performing reaching movements. The experimental protocol was designed to have an a priori expected comfort ranking, namely, higher values in presence of more uncomfortable tasks. The preliminary assessment of the Method for Movement and Gesture Assessment (MMGA) in the ergonomic evaluation of reaching tasks gave promising results and showed the effectiveness of the index. Moreover, the proposed method was applied for the comparison between a real refrigerator and a new concept: MMGA manifested its applicability and resolution in the quantitative ergonomic assessment of accessibility and usability tasks. Next improvements of MMGA concern the integration of movement dynamics and the design of absolute-assessment studies with respect to working time. Future applications of the method might be the integration into CAD tools and human motion simulation to provide an early comparative evaluation of the ergonomics of the prototyping process and workplace redesign in industry.