A Comparison of Force Demand Measurement Methods while operating a Lift-assist during Automotive Assembly

This Master Thesis raise on from the necessity to evaluate the method currently used within the FCA industries in order to assess the forces demand on an assembly line worker that has to use a lift assist device to perform his job task. To reach this aim an Instrumented Handle has been employed in order to directly and in real-time record those forces during an actual work shift in a FCA assembly plant. One of the milestones of ergonomics has been always to look at the real exertions, actual postures and exact movements performed by the workers on duty. The Instrumented Handle Method allows recording the real forces exchanged at the hand-handle interface during a real job task performing without introducing any corruption, approximation or modification usually introduced by job-simulating standard measurement methods. This study through data analysis and processing has been able to evaluate the actual standard FCA method showing the limitations of this procedure, to show the potentialities of the Instrumented Handle Method and to give suggestions for possible future improvements