Cost-Effective Alternative Methods for Office Workstation Measurements: Self-Assessment and Partnered-Assessment

Abstract

In office settings with a large number of employees, workstation measurement can be a time consuming task for an ergonomist. In seeking ways to reduce the time scheduled for this task, a study was designed to determine if anthropometric and workstation information could be accurately collected by employees themselves or by two-person teams consisting of an employee and a co-worker. An iterative process was used to develop a method that would: 1) require a minimum number of measurements to be made by the employees, 2) produce an acceptable level of accuracy, and 3) provide complete and useful information to an ergonomist. Results of the study show acceptable accuracy when using a combined assisted and unassisted data collection approach.