Estimation of Energy Expenditure Based on Divided Manual Material Handling Task: Waste Collection Example

Abstract

The objectives of this study were: i) to present an approach for potential areas of ergonomic analysis software usage and to get familiar with the usage of this kind of problem assessment by applying the software to a practical example in a problem area with significant ergonomic problems to be analyzed. ii) to estimate energy expenditure rates for waste collection task using the University of Michigan Energy Expenditure Prediction Program (EEPP) to comfort worker safety and health. iii) to compare with regression equations in literature to illustrate the performance of the EEPP software. The assessment will make use of a University of Michigan EEPP to predict energy expenditure of materials handling tasks to comfort worker safety and health. A manual waste collection task was selected as a job analysis and the results will be compared with NIOSH guidelines and regression equations in literature to illustrate the performance of the EEPP software. The results show that EEPP software and prediction equation estimated quite close average task energy rate (kcal/min). This predicted information can be useful for waste collection job design instead of using oxygen consumption measurement which takes long time and costly. Furthermore, these results can be used for recommendations to improve ergonomic factors of the waste collection tasks in form of a guideline.

Keywords

• Energy expenditure,Ergonomic analysis tools,Job analysis,Prediction,Waste collection

References

1. Chaffin, D.B. (1972). Some effects of Physical Exertion. Dept. of Ind. And Operations Eng, The university of Michigan.