The evaluation and design of electronic assembly workstation

• Main Authors: Ya-Juan Chen, 陳雅娟
• Other Authors: Joe-Hsiang Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2001
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/57074637250362722888

碩士 === 中原大學 === 工業工程研究所 === 89 === The electronic industry has developed vigorously recently. Both fully automatic machines and human assembly lines are used in electronic industry. There is a human machine relationship between operators and the assembly workstations. In this study, the operators’ muscular fatigue and task performance were used to evaluate the design of the electronic assembly workstation, aiming at coming up with ergonomic recommendations for the design of the electronic workstation. The conveyor plays an important role in assembly workstations, either transporting finish goods or semi-finish goods. Operators in assembly workstations may reach their arms to the conveyor for semi-finish goods for further assembly. The reach distance of the conveyor may affect operators’ fatigue and performance. Additionally, the distance between the conveyor and the operator is affected by the size of the workbench. Two positions are usually considered in arranging the relative position of the operator to the conveyor, either locating the operator directly in front of the conveyor or locating the operator at the side of the conveyor. There is no specific rule for choosing the front or lateral position in locating the operator with respect to the conveyor. Most considerations are dependent on the task demand or machine layout, but not on the operator capacity. Therefore, this study focuses on operators’ fatigue and performance to evaluate the relationship between the position of the conveyor and the workbench depth. Frequency of operation and work piece weight are two additional factors considered in the experiment. The simulated experimental task is performed as close as possible to that in the electronics assembly workstation. The dependent variables are the subjective measure, the EMG root mean square, mean power frequency, task performance, and the distance from the subject to the workbench. The result shows that high frequency tasks have a greater impact on the operator fatigue than heavy tasks. As for the position of the conveyor, the fatigue level increases and performance reduces with the increase of the workbench depth when the conveyor is in front of the operator. This study also found that when the workbench depth reaches 95th percentile of the arm reach value, it is better to locate the conveyor laterally to the subject, because the longer workbench depth in the front will cause higher fatigue and lower performance than the lateral position. Keyword: conveyor, position, frequency, work piece weight, EMG