Högskolan i Skövde

Car manufacturing is often associated with poor working environment resulting in musculoskeletal disorders and high sick leave among assembly workers. Besides, a number of studies have proven that there is a clear correlation between assembly ergonomics and product quality and that poor assembly ergonomics result in impaired product quality and in decreased productivity. Many proactive measures have been made trying to prevent these problems such as training production staff in load ergonomics, workstation improvements, work rotation and design changes in product and production development. Nevertheless, there are remaining difficulties in receiving acceptance for changes of product and production solutions that cause poor assembly ergonomics.

This project aims at analyzing the relation between assembly ergonomics, assemblability and product quality. The objective is to quantify ergonomics and assemblability in economic terms in order to better support the development of more ergonomic product and assembly solutions, particularly at early stages of the car development process. Overall, the purpose is to create a tool that supports decision making in the design of assembly concepts. The tool will have functionality to assess ergonomic conditions in terms of quality and productivity, interpreted in monetary terms.

A selection of assemblies of high, medium and low physical work load are followed and evaluated with respect to quality errors for eight weeks in production. The numbers of quality errors are registered and the costs for scrap and corrective quality actions are calculated. For each ergonomic risk level the purpose is to define an associated quality cost.