Investigation of the altered influence of physical stress by the use of ergonomically optimized forging tongs

Abstract Work-related illnesses and the resulting employee absences can have a major impact on productivity competitiveness, especially in small medium-sized enterprises. Particularly forging industry, manual handling of forged parts leads to high physical stress thus frequent musculoskeletal system, hand-arm system. One possibility counteract this circumstance is use ergonomic tongs. In study presented here, influence tongs employees was investigated by simulation experiment compared conventional Within experimental investigation, were varied. simulation, an ergonomics assessment situation could be evaluated using Ergonomic Assessment Worksheet. study, gripping force measurements calorie used determine employees. The results show that new ergonomically optimized lead significant relief for knowledge gained from developed concepts also transferred other industries.