Force Weighting Approach to Calculate Spinal Cumulative Loading for Ergonomic Workforce Planning in Production

For the prevention of musculoskeletal disorders (MSD), the evaluation of manual materials handling (MMH) is important. In this context, cumulative loading can be used as an exposure index for the ergonomic assessment of workplaces. However, it was shown in previous empirical studies that most existing methods for calculating cumulative loading fail to completely capture the resulting physiological effects of working conditions on human workers. Therefore, this contribution outlines the development and validation of a novel force weighted approach to calculated spinal cumulative loading that reflects the muscular exposure. Empirical data from 36 individuals were used as the data basis for deriving and validating the calculation method. The results of the validation show a high prediction quality on the basis of the hold-out method. Hence, the method provides relevant indicators for the ergonomic assessment of MMH activities. Thus, it might be a useful tool for workforce planning in production.