Asee peer logo

Design Improvement of a Polishing Machine Work Station in Industrial Environment to Minimize Health Risk

Download Paper |

Conference

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual Conference

Publication Date

July 26, 2021

Start Date

July 26, 2021

End Date

July 19, 2022

Conference Session

Engineering Technology Pedagogy 1

Tagged Division

Engineering Technology

Page Count

10

DOI

10.18260/1-2--36915

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/36915

Download Count

539

Paper Authors

biography

Samia Afrin East Tennessee State University

visit author page

Samia Afrin is an assistant professor at East Tennessee State University in Engineering, Engineering Technology and Surveying Department. She completed her MS and PhD from University of Texas at El Paso in Environmental Science and Engineering. Her research concentration is in renewable energy, fluid dynamics, heat transfer. Her work also focus in dynamic learning platform in engineering education.

visit author page

biography

Ty Reeves East Tennessee State University

visit author page

Ty Reeves is an undergraduate student in General Engineering at East Tennessee State University.

visit author page

biography

Levi Myers East Tennessee State University

visit author page

Levi Myers is an undergraduate student in Engineering Technology and Surveying Department Manufacturing major at East Tennessee State University.

visit author page

biography

Kyle Davis East Tennessee State University

visit author page

Kyle Davis is an undergraduate student in Engineering Technology and Surveying Department Manufacturing major at East Tennessee State University.

visit author page

author page

Noah Benjamin Dowell

Download Paper |

Abstract

The application of ergonomics in industry is obvious now a days especially for designing a work station. The ergonomics goal in industry is to make the workplace best fit for the workers to ensure their comfort and safety which impacts the workers’ satisfaction, reduce the number of injuries and production rate. In order to maximize the safety and productivity of a working environment, ergonomic approach must evaluate every aspect of the work place and appropriately implement rules, guidelines and plans. This paper addressed an injury risk in a manufacturing industry and proposed multiple solutions to resolve the injury risk and musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) risk. The injury risks include the exposure of bare skin to sparks while grinding, poor back posture and hand injury while performing the operation. Keeping the worker in mind, and the need for precision and specific tolerances, the difficulties are significant. The proposed design modification of the polishing/grinding machine was challenging because of the type of job performed here and space limitations. The improvement of workstation was done by incorporating an economic and ergonomic design approach. The result was verified by the ergonomic risk factor assessment tools Rapid Upper Limp Assessment (RULA) and Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) before and after the design modification.

Afrin, S., & Reeves, T., & Myers, L., & Davis, K., & Dowell, N. B. (2021, July), Design Improvement of a Polishing Machine Work Station in Industrial Environment to Minimize Health Risk Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--36915

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2021 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015