Using Ergonomics in Your Everyday Life

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1 What is ergonomics? Industrial & Systems Engineering ERGONOMICS Using Ergonomics in Your Everyday Life Ergonomics is a branch of engineering in which biological science is used to study the relation between workers and their environments. How can I apply ergonomics to my everyday life? Backpacks: As a student, we know you are very involved in school! As a result, your backpack can start to become very heavy. Try to keep your backpack light by only carrying what you need for the day, rather than all of your books. Below is a chart showing maximum backpack weight based on a person s weight: Person s Weight (lb) Maximum Backpack Weight (lb) >200 25* *No person should carry more than 25 lbs 1 Studying: Often, students spend a lot of time sitting down to work on homework or study. It is important to have good posture while working. Hunching over or slumping while studying can cause your back to strain. Try to sit up straight and maintain good posture. Sitting for prolonged periods of time without getting up and moving around can also cause strain on your body. Make sure to take study breaks and to get up and stretch to stay healthy and keep your body feeling good! Computers/TV: Whether you are working on homework, browsing social media, or watching TV, it is necessary to take breaks from looking at a screen for too long to avoid eye strain. It is recommended to take mini-breaks to allow your eyes to rest. Also, make sure not to sit too close to a TV or computer screen to keep your eyes from straining. 1https://

2 Industrial & Systems Engineering SUSTAINABILITY

3 Industrial & Systems Engineering ERGONOMICS Preventing Repetitive Strain Injuries in the Workplace In each of the following sets of pictures, circle which picture shows a more ergonomic activity: 1. Heavy loads 2. Reaching for high objects

4 Preventing Repetitive Strain Injuries in the Workplace 3. Computer height 4. Using gloves with power tools 5. Work table height

5 Industrial & Systems Engineering KAIZEN Applying Kaizen Thinking at Home, School, and Work Identifying Forms of Waste: Time Inventory Motion Waste describes the elements of a process that add no value to the service or product required. When implementing continuous process improvement, identify the value stream for each process. Allow value to flow without interruption. Waiting Overproduction Overprocessing Kaizen focuses both on lead time and variation reduction. Kaizen is data driven and measurement focused in order to provide a baseline for future improvements. Defects Kaizen improvements focus to decrease waste while maintaining or improving quality, safety, delivery, and cost.

6 Build your Own Abacus 1. Using 4 Popsicle sticks and tape, build a frame for the abacus. 2. Roll up paper triangle around a pencil starting at the base of the triangle and ending at the tip. Glue the end of the triangle and gently slide the pencil out. Repeat for all your triangles. 3. Slip a pipe cleaner through a straw and add five of the same color paper beads onto the straw. 4. Wrap the ends of the pipe cleaners around the frame. 5. Using tape, attach one additional popsicle stick perpendicular to the straws, about ¼ way from the left end. One bead on each row should be to the left of the popsicle stick. Secure so that these beads cannot move to the other side of the popsicle stick. Brief Abacus History Some cultures developed tools and systems to help with calculations. One of the more familiar is the abacus, developed around 3000 BCE in Mesopotamia. It began as a board or slab covered in sand. It was used in ancient Babylon for aligning numbers or writing. It later developed into a board with lines or grooves for counters. The modern abacus has counters threaded onto rods or wires, but is used in the same way. The position of a bead or counter denotes whether it stands for a unit, a ten, a hundred and so on. A practiced, proficient user can move the beads or counters at great speed. As late as the 1920s, accountants training in London had to be able to use an abacus as well as arithmetical methods. External Links: Lean Manufacturing - Kaizen Methodology - Lean FastCap Style What does Kaizen and Emptying a Dishwasher have in Common?

7 Industrial & Systems Engineering OPERATIONS RESEARCH What is Operations Research? Operations Research (OR) uses optimization models to identify a problem s ideal solution. In other words, people that study operations research are always trying to find the best solution for different problems! This is usually done by creating a mathematical model to represent a real life situation. These problems are called optimization problems. Some different ways operations research is used: Determining the number of patients arriving at an Emergency Room Keeping lines at a store short Deciding how many products a store should put on a shelf Deciding how much work to give each employee Minimizing the amount of money spent on materials Minimizing the number of defective parts made Buying everything needed and minimizing costs Riding as many rides at Disney World as possible Finding the shortest route to your destination Delivering all packages in the shortest time possible Solving fun puzzles like Sudoku!

8 Did you know you might see Operations Research every day? Google Maps and the GPS in your car use Operations Research to find the optimal route to your destination. They can minimize traffic, total miles traveled or even tols! When your mail is delivered your mailman will follow a route optimized to use the least amount of gas and deliver all mail as quickly as possible. This is especially important around Christmas! If you play games like Roller Coaster Tycoon you are trying to optimize or maximize the amount of money you make or the number of guests you have in your park! The game is also working behind the scenes to optimize your experience by deciding its reactions to your inputs.

9 Industrial & Systems Engineering OPERATIONS RESEARCH Instructions: Solving Puzzles with Operations Research 1. Pick a puzzle that interests you below 2. While solving the puzzle think about some rules that you need to solve the puzzle 3. Write down a few of the clues or restrictions you thought of 4. How do you think this could apply to Engineering? 5. Do you think you could solve this faster than a computer? Observe the computer program that is made for the puzzle you attempted. How fast did the computer solve it compared to you? How do you think similar computer codes are used by engineers in real life? Puzzle One: Sudoku Enter numbers into the blank spaces so that each row, column and 3x3 box contains the numbers 1 to 9.

10 Puzzle Two: It's all Just Routine When conversation at her recent dinner party turned to exercise, Joanne, the hostess, was delighted to discover that, in addition to herself, four of her guests had embarked on a new workout regimen. Each of the five are doing a different type of exercise, have started for a different reason, and have been working out for a different number of weeks. (1,2,3,4,or 5) For the information provided match each person with the type of exercise (one is power walking) he or she had been doing, the reason he or she have been working out (one is going on vacation to St. Thomas), and the number of weeks he or she has been exercising. 1. Vesta had been exercising for exactly one week less than the person doing aerobics (who is shaping up for a class reunion). 2. The person getting fit in preparation for an upcoming vacation (who isn t the one named Iris) has been exercising for two weeks. 3. Nicholas is trimming down to play Stanley Kowalski in a community theater production of A Streetcar Named Desire. He isn t the person who had been working out for one week. 4. Marvin has been working out for four weeks. The person who has been working for five weeks isn t the one using the stationary bike. 5. The person shaping up for a wedding has been exercising for exactly two more weeks than the jogger. The swimmer has been working out for three weeks.

11 Puzzle Three: Cracker-barrel Peg Board The puzzle being solved is a triangle peg game. This game consists of a wooden triangle that has fifteen holes and fourteen pegs. The objective of the puzzle is to finish your moves with only one peg left in the board. A move is defined as using a peg to jump over an adjacent peg to an open hole. The peg that was jumped over is then removed from the board. When no more moves can be made, the game is over. Because that game starts with fourteen pegs and winning finishes with 1 peg, the solution for this puzzle will include thirteen moves. (It is estimated that the solution of this puzzle is dependent on the hole that is left open to start and on each move. If a center hole is left open to start there may be about three unique solutions, but if a side hole is left open at the start there may be only one or two. Overall this gives us an estimated 30 solutions to the puzzle.) List three things you had to think about while solving this puzzle: If you had to tell a person (or computer) how to solve your puzzle, list three rules you would give them: HINT: these can be similar to your answer above or similar to the puzzle instructions

12 Industrial & Systems Engineering TPS Assembly Line An assembly line is a manufacturing process, sometimes called a progressive assembly, in which parts are added as the semi-finished assembly moves from workstation to workstation. The parts are added in sequence until the final assembly is produced. By moving the parts to the assembly work and moving the semi-finished assembly from workstation to workstation, a finished product can be assembled faster and with less labor than having workers carry parts to a single stationary piece for assembly. Assembly lines can be used for simple products like personal pizzas and for very complex products like cars and electronic equipment. Other examples include cameras, computers, household appliances, like your refrigerator, microwave, and even your toaster. The food industry also uses the assembly line to manufacture or process foods and then package them to be distributed and sold. In addition to using the assembly line process, other ideas for improving the efficiency of a manufacturing process are standardizing the parts and equipment used and designing the product so it can use interchangeable parts. Using interchangeable parts allows for easier repair and replacement of parts in the event of a breakdown. An efficient assembly line should have a continuous flow of work throughout the line. To improve the flow, work needs to be arranged so that as one task finishes, another begins with minimum set-up time. In between For more information please visit:

13 Assembly Line Vocabulary Worksheet Match the following words with their definitions. 1. Assembly Line 2. Bottleneck 3. Manufacturing 4. Process Simulation 5. Throughput 6. Unbalanced Assembly Line 7. Utilization 8. Workstation 1. G 2. H 3. F 4. B 5. E 6. A 7. D 8. C A. Where the time taken to perform work at each workstation is not the same (some shorter, some longer), usually resulting in a build-up at one of more workstations B. A model that is used for the design and analysis of a manufacturing process and shows the flow of parts or products C. A particular stop on the assembly line where a specific task (work) is performed D. A measure of busy time - How busy a person is on the line relative to how much time they could be busy or working E. The rate at which products come off the line (parts per second or per minute) F. The production of goods for use or sale using people, machines, and tools - Typically, materials are transformed into finished goods G. A manufacturing process in which parts are added to a product in a specific order or sequence to create a finished product H. A circumstance where the performance of an entire system in limited by one workstation, typically the slowest one