Use of the Human Body

1. The two hands should begin as well as complete their motions at the same time. 2. The two hands should not be idle at the same time except during rest periods. 3. Motions of the arms should be made in opposite and symmetrical directions and should be made simultaneously. Barnes has written that the three principles can be examined or discussed simultaneously. He gave the example of bolt and washer assembly. In the old method bolt is picked up by the left hand and then a lock washer is picked up by the right hand placed on the bolt. Next, the right hand picks up a steel washer and placed on the bolt. Then a rubber washer is picked up the right hand and placed on the bolt. The completed assembly is disposed of in a container placed at the left side of the operator. As we can see two hands are moving simultaneously. One is holding the bolt and the other hand is doing picking and assembling work. In the revised method, a fixture is made that holds two bolts and has recess. The operator has 7 bins before him. He first pickups a rubber washer from bins numbered one on left and right. Actually the bottom of the bins slope toward the work area at a 30 degree angle so that materials are fed onto the work area by gravity. The operator slides the washers into the recesses of the fixture. Then steel washers are slided. The the lock washer is slided into position. Two bolts are picked and dropped into the fixture. Then both bolts are removed and disposed of in bins placed on the right side as well as left side. In the return motion they pick the new rubber washers. You can visualize how all three principles are applied in the new design. See video clip easier way produced by General Motors in 1946 illustrating these principles. http://www.archive.org/details/EasierWa1946 ___________ 4. Hand and body motions should be confined to the lowest classification with which it is possible to perform the work satisfactorily. Classification of Hand-motions 1. Finger motions 2. Wrist motions 3. Forearm motions 4. Upper arm motions 5. Shoulder motions (This class of motions results in disturbance of the posture) Barnes highlighted that in one investigation it was found that finger motions were more fatiguing, less accurate, and slower than motions of the forearm. The evidence points out that th forearm is the most desirable member to use for light work, and that in highly repetitive work,motions about the wrist and elbow are superior to those of the fingers or shoulders. Bending has physiological cost. A study made by Barnes et al. on picking bricks from a platform 5 inches above the floor and another platform 37 inches above the floor to place them on a bench 33 inches high showed that

both energy expenditure and heart beat were high when picking up bricks from 5 inch high platform. These sort of experiments are to be conducted by industrial engineers in their motion studies to improve the comfort and health of operators.

5. Momentum should be employed to assist the worker wherever possible, and it should be reduced to a minimum if it must be overcome by muscular effort. In certain tasks, it is possible to employ momentum of the hand, the tool or the part being moved to do useful work. Where a forcible stroke is involved, the motions have to be arranged such that the stroke is delivered with the greatest momentum. In the tasks where the momentum must be overcome by the worker's muscles, momentum must be reduced to a minimum by decreasing the weight of the tools and parts because it causes fatigue.

6. Smooth continuous curved motions of the hands are preferable to straight-line motions involving sudden and sharp changes in direction. Barnes has given the examples of paper holding and dipping of candy to illustrate this point. 7. Ballistic movements are faster, easier, and more accurate than restricted or fixation or controlled movements. Ballistics movement is a fast, easy motion caused by a single contraction of a positive muscle group with no antagonistic muscle group contracting or opposing it. In the fixation or controlled movements, opposing groups of muscles are contracted one group against the other. 8. Work should be arranged to permit an easy and natural rhythm wherever possible. Rhythm can refer to the regular repetition of a certain cycle of motions by an individual. Rhythm which is a proper sequence of motions, assists in making the operation practically an automatic performance - there is no mental effort on the part of the operator. 9. Eye fixations should be as few and as close together as possible.

Principles Related to the Work Place 10. There should be a definite and fixed places for all tools and materials. Definite and fixed places for materials and tools aid the operators in habit formation. This helps in the development of automaticity. It is advantage when operators can perform the operations with the least conscious mental direction. When materials and tools are at fixed places, the hand automatically finds them without support of eyes and the eyes may be kept fixed on the point where the tools and materials are used.

11. Tools, materials, and controls should be located close to the point of use. For an operators , sitting or standing, the comfortable working place is bounded by lines which are arcs of circles. The maximum working area for each hand is determined by an arc drawn with a sweep of the hand across the table, with the arm pivoted at the shoulder. In the overlapping area work involving both hands can be done comfortably. 12. Gravity feed bins and containers should be used to deliver material close to the point of use. Bins with sloping bottoms provide the parts at the bottom tray of the bin and operator need not dip into the bin to pick up the part. To provide many different parts, nested bins one above the other are used. Bins and hopper for process shops - http://www.processsolutions.net/bins.html

13. Drop deliveries should be used wherever possible. Arrangements are to be done to release the finished units from the position is was completed and deliver them to their destination by gravity. There is significant amount of time involved in manually disposing the finished items. A study of disposing gauging small pins was conducted in this context. The study involed disposing of the pins into a tote box kept as 3 inches behind a fixture, 10 inches behind a fixture and 20 inches behind a fixture. The time was least when the pins were tossed into the bin 3 inches near the fixture. The therbligs involved were transport loaded and release load. Eighteen percent more time was used when the bin was at 10 inches and 34 per cent more time was spent when the bin was kept at 20 inches distance. 14. Materials and tools should be located to permit the best sequence of motions. The material required at the beginning of a task cycle should be place next to the point of released of the finished piece in the preceding task cycle. 15. Provisions should be made for adequate conditions for seeing. Good illumination is the first requirement for satisfactory visual perception. 16. The height of the work place and the chair should preferably arranged so that alternate sitting and standing at work are easily possible. 17. A chair of the type and height to permit good posture should be provided for every worker.

Design of tools and equipment 18. The hands should be relieved of all work that can be done more advantageously by a jig, a fixture, or a foot-operated device. Barnes has written that foot operated equipment is not utilized adequately in methods and tool design (p.223). He also mentions that one company saved 50 percent time on the operation of soldering a wire to the end of flat metal electric statis shield by the use of a foot-operated soldering iron. The brief description of foot operated soldering iron was given in the book by Barnes. 19. Two or more tools should be combined wherever possible. Devevelop and use two ended tools 20. Tools and materials should be prepositioned whenever possible. Tools are kept in specified holders in the form of socket, compartment, bracket or hanger all the time when there are not in use. They are returned or kept in the same position by the operator after they are used. The design of the holder is to be such that the tool is quickly released into its place. Also, it should facilitate quick grasping for use. 21. Where each finger performs some specific movement, such as in typewriting, the load should be distributed in accordance with the inherent capacities of the fingers. 22. Levers, hand wheels and other controls should be located in such positions that the operator can manipulate them with the least change in body position and with the greatest speed and ease. The controls on the machine should located in such a way that the operator need bend or twist his body in an uncomfortable manner when manipulating them