Applied anthropometry for common industrial settings design: Working and ideal manual handling heights

Anthropometry has been used extensively for designing safe and sustainable products and workplaces. However, it is common that designers need straightforward guidelines and dimensions, which they often lack, for specific design situations. Anthropometric data are usually presented in tables that summarize percentile values, separated by gender, of a specific population, which makes it difficult for designers to generate applications for mixed populations, such as industrial settings. Using a recently collected anthropometric database of Chilean workers (male and female), international standards of dimensions for working height, depth, and ideal manual handling height are tested with univariate and bivariate methods. Alternative dimensions are presented for both adjustable and non-adjustable designs. Additionally, procedures to combine samples, and for knowing how many users match with a particular design are explained using the sample data. As expected, adjustable designs proved to match with higher numbers of users, while non-adjustable dimensions recommended by ISO presented low levels of matching. Furthermore, the non-adjustable design achieved 83% of matching, which increased to the desired levels (90%) with the inclusion of a 50 mm increase platform. Finally, the Z-Score equation proved to be a useful tool to know the percentages of the population that are matched with a particular design dimension. Relevance for the industry: Dimensions for working height, depth, and ideal manual handling heights, which are currently not available, are provided for Chilean workers. A method to determine the matching percentage in a population is explained, in order to assess matching probabilities when having only summarized anthropometric tables and the dimensions for the design itself.This work was supported by the Mutual de Seguridad de la C. Ch.C in the framework of the fund titled “Proyectos de Investigación e Innovación SUSESO”. That fund requires the following text be included: “Este trabajo fue seleccionado en la Convocatoria de Proyectos de Investigación e Innovación de Prevención de Accidentes y Enfermedades Profesionales “2015” de la Superintendencia de Seguridad Social (Chile), y fue financiado por “Mutual de Seguridad de la C. Ch.C″ con recursos del Seguro Social de la Ley N° 16.744 de Accidentes del Trabajo y Enfermedades Profesionales.” The authors wish to thank all the participating workers, as well as the seven physiotherapists for their collaboration in the measurement process (Gonzalo Bravo, Agustina Cárdenas, Felipe Llanca, Ítalo Mercurino, Soraya Sabaj, Álvaro Villanueva, Romina Zamorano)