A literature review of the anthropometric studies of school students for ergonomics purposes: are accuracy, precision and reliability being considered?

BACKGROUND: Despite offering many benefits, direct manual anthropometric measurement method can be problematic due to their vulnerability to measurement errors. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this literature review was to determine, whether or not the currently published anthropometric studies of school children, related to ergonomics, mentioned or evaluated the variables precision, reliability and/or accuracy in the direct manual measurement method. METHODS: Two bibliographic databases, and the bibliographic references of all the selected papers were used for finding relevant published papers in the fields considered in this study. RESULTS: Forty-six (46) studies met the criteria previously defined for this literature review. However, only ten (10) studies mentioned at least one of the analyzed variables, and none has evaluated all of them. Only reliability was assessed by three papers. Moreover, in what regards the factors that affect precision, reliability and accuracy, the reviewed papers presented large differences. This was particularly clear in the instruments used for the measurements, which were not consistent throughout the studies. Additionally, it was also clear that there was a lack of information regarding the evaluators’ training and procedures for anthropometric data collection, which are assumed to be the most important issues that affect precision, reliability and accuracy. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the results it was possible to conclude that the considered anthropometric studies had not focused their attention to the analysis of precision, reliability and accuracy of the manual measurement methods. Hence, and with the aim of avoiding measurement errors and misleading data, anthropometric studies should put more efforts and care on testing measurement error and defining the procedures used to collect anthropometric data

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Alarm detection in noise work environments: the influence of hearing protection devices

Industrial machines are typical noisy sources causing discomfort and risk to the workers’ health. Studying in what extent individual hearing protection devices influences, or not, the perception of alarms in industrial environments and in the presence of background noise was the main aim of this work. The warning signal used was a warning signal from a textile finishing machine and the background noise was produced by a white noise generator. The tests were performed with the subjects in an audiometric booth using different hearing protection devices. The obtained results shown evidence that, under the used test conditions, earplugs and passive earmuffs were the devices showing less interference with the perception of warning signals in the presence of background noise. At the same time it was found that the active (level dependent) earmuffs interfere with the perception of the warning signal in the same conditions

Integrated management systems: survey results from Portuguese companies and experts

The proliferation of several certifiable sub-systems among different type of organizations lead companies to excessive departmentalization. This fact turned out to be, due to several reasons pointed out by numerous authors, disadvantageous. Hence, organizations optioned by integration of their management sub-systems. Academic awareness to this sociological event is mainly related with the fact of integration of management systems (IMS) had been performed empirically, that is, by each organization on their own due to the lack of an International Normative. In this paper it is intended to present the refined results from an online survey focused on Portuguese companies ruled by integrated management systems (IMS). These results will be crossed against a questionnaire under taken through a panel of academic and industry experts in order to weight the parameters surveyed online through a perspective of management system integration degree. The conclusions from this work also address Occupational Health and Safety issues in an integrated environment

Image analysis as a basis to the design of wheelchair rugby sportswear

Sportswear clothing plays a very important part in athletes’ performance. Inappropriate fit puts at risk not only the outcome of the sports event but also the safety of athletes. Wheelchair rugby is a good example of athletes wearing sportswear that is inappropriately fitted. The purpose of this study is to analyse, by means of videos and photographs, the patterns of activity and movements performed by the athletes during a set of wheelchair rugby training sessions. This analysis serves not only to inform on the movements and body postures but also on the problems and difficulties caused by the items of sportswear worn by the athletes. From the analysis it was observed that gloves are causing the most problems with performance, whilst tops and bottoms have more impact on comfort

Aplicación del método Delphi para la inclusión de las externalidades en análisis de seguridad y de salud laboral

Organizations should regularly conduct an assessment of their occupational hazards in order to design and implement preventive measures that are necessary and sufficient to deal with the level of risk, the costs of prevention and the safety at levels considered acceptable by the organization. Furthermore, the selection of measures to be implemented in an organization should take into account both internal and external costs. Externalities are of great importance in terms of the costs of accidents at work; nevertheless, they are not often properly addressed by the organizations. In this paper we describe an application of the Delphi method to understand how externalities can be included in Occupational Safety and Health.Las organizaciones deben realizar periódicamente una evaluación de sus riesgos laborales con el fin de diseñar y poner en práctica medidas preventivas que sean necesarias y suficientes para mantener e l nivel de riesgo, los costos de la prevención y la seguridad en los niveles considerados aceptables por la organización. Por otra parte, la selección de las medidas a aplicar en una organización debe tener en cuenta tanto los costes internos como externos. Las externalidades son de gran importancia en términos de los costos de los accidentes de trabajo; sin embargo, a menudo no se tratan adecuadamente por las organizaciones. En este artículo se describe una aplicación del método Delphi para entender cómo los factores externos pueden ser incluidos en la Seguridad y Salud Laboral.The authors would like to acknowledge all the experts who have participated in the Delphi panel. The authors also acknowledge the anonymous reviewers who helped to improve the overall quality of the current manuscript. This study was financially supported by FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia of Portugal, under the project ID/CEC/00319/2013

Benchmarking on behalf of management systems integration

The integration of management systems, to be effective, requires several organisational features. An integrating concept enabling a common language, a proactive approach, a holistic vision, sustainable objectives and consistence and coherence on action are among those features. All these features will be properly and efficiently achieved considering concepts linked to benchmarking, namely, teammanship, self-management, democracy in management and collaborative benchmarking. This paper is based on an ongoing research project focusing the development of a tool/methodology to assess maturity and effectiveness levels achieved by organizations that implemented an integrated management system (IMS) being its purpose to report and to enhance the potential synergies between benchmarking methodologies and management systems integration. The research, and implicit results, aims organizations that are considering an IMS implementation being the findings transferable to in field environment, being useful to practitioners willing to implement an IMS

Integrated management systems: on the path to maturity and efficiency assessment

The results from an online survey focusing Portuguese integrated management system (IMS) ruled companies are presented in the present article. These are partial results from an ongoing project aiming the maturity rating and assessment of IMS and companies where implemented. Surveyed companies match partially the national Portuguese profile, namely, on geographic location and company dimension characteristics. Results suggest that motivations, benefits and obstacles related to integration are internal or mainly internal. A sequential over a step by step or “all in” integration sequence as been reported as the most common one among the surveyed companies. Integrated audits seem to be the model adopted by the majority of the companies. Systems managers found implementation sub-systems standards easy or, at least, reasonably easy, to integrate. A major dividing point between surveyed companies is related to the identification of organizational items not susceptible of being integrated. Approximately 55% of the surveyed companies identified those items while 45% did not. Systems managers’ majority did not felt that an ultimate excellence level of integration had been reached by their companies but rather a high integration level corresponding to common organizational structure plus policies and goals, management tools and documental integration. All respondents felt that the overall company performance would be lower (79%) or at least equal (21%) if running through separate management sub-systems. Almost totally agreed that IMS is an add value to the company. Related to responsibility it seem that companies option rely on traditional pyramidal model with an IMS coordinator and a QMS, an EMS and/or an OHSMS sub-systems responsible providing feedback. Finally, process, operations and management monitoring was assessed by the survey. Almost all companies agreed that monitoring was performed by key process indicators (KPI’s), operations process indicators (OPI’s) or management process indicators (MPI’s). Similar results were found when asked about integrated indicators

A model proposal for integrated management systems maturity assessment

Maturity models enabling the assessment of integrated management systems (IMS) are crucial in order to provide a comparison between IMS from different companies. This paper intends to report the efforts made and the methodologies followed to develop an IMS maturity assessment model. Additionally, the paper aims at presenting such model, illustrate its usefulness, and demonstrate how companies may implement it as an organizational guide focusing an ultimate excellence level. Two surveys have been developed. An online survey with 30 questions/statements was held focusing Portuguese companies with more than one certified management subsystem according to the following standards: ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001/NP 4397. The survey was supported on Likert type scales, with categorical and multiple option answers/statements. A pre-test was performed in three companies in order to validate the survey. A second survey was developed and submitted to the appreciation of an experts group to assess in what extent each parameter could reflect the management system integration level. The maturity model reported in this paper provides companies with a guiding path in order to achieve an ultimate excellence level. The final model version is sustained on two components, namely, a back office component, describing the statistical relationships between variables, and a front office Capability Maturity Model integrated (CMMi) based component, enabling companies to interact with the model. The back office component was developed through linear and multiple regression models and by statistical significant variables identification affecting an “IMS maturity level” latent variable. Additionally, Pearson correlation was assessed among those variables not statistically related to the latent variable. Front office component has five maturity levels and a “zero level” acting as a pre-requirement and enabling, or not, the access to the maturity assessment model. To access at higher maturity levels the IMS should comply with excellence management requirements, external factors requirements and key process agents’ (KPAs) requirements