Two prototype gloves have been designed and developed at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The aim of this study was to evaluate the safety performance of the developed gloves. An experiment was conducted to assess the discomfort threshold level at 12 zones on the palmar surface of the hand for five hand conditions--bare hand, single glove, double glove and two prototype gloves. Prototype I consisted of a glove with an extra layer of glove material applied selectively to critical areas of the hand; while prototype II had up to four layers applied to critical areas. This design increases protection in critical areas without increasing bulk, provides performances comparable with single glove, and improves grip strength. The study was conducted using an algometer device to apply pressure to each of the 12 zones, for all hand conditions. The results indicated that for pressure tolerance, prototype II had the highest pressure-discomfort threshold, while prototype I had a threshold similar to the double layer glove. Pressure discomfort tolerance threshold is greatly increased by the use of gloves, and pressure-discomfort thresholds are raised by 25-65%. The two prototype gloves, although much less bulkier than the double glove, have pressure thresholds that are equal to or superior to that of a double glove. The algometer can be used to assess the safety of glove from mechanical trauma. Hence, the generalizability of the results is somewhat restricted. However, the method of selective protection, without compromising performance appears to be promising and is worth pursuing by glove designers.
Manufacturing and service industries throughout the world are continuously finding methods to remain lean and profitable. This process had accelerated the globalization of manufacturing facilities. The motto “determine the most effective way of producing” has driven these efforts. The results are a change from a “production and operations management” philosophy, to a “supply chain management” philosophy. ERP systems are system software that integrates all the functions in an organization. The integration is provided across all functional frontiers of the organization. For example, different links in the supply chain may exist at different parts of the world, leading to differences in a wide range of attributes, e.g., culture, work hours, different governmental regulations, and different customer requirements for the same product. These differences necessitate the need for integration and ERP systems are prescribed to fill the need. ERP systems, as they are common to a wide range of industries, are sufficiently generic and understandably complex. Popular brand systems are “People Soft”, “Oracle”, “Bean” and “SAP”. While they promise considerable benefits to organizations that implement them, the process of implementation, in itself, is very complex, often lasting two to three years and costing more than 1$00 million. The human factors' concerns are many, and unfortunately may be, the main cause of the problems that have plagued the ERP systems.
A new design for gloves was developed based on tlie principle of selective protection, where protective material is introduced in varying levels over different parts of the glove, in order to provide protection where it is most needed, and at the same time preserve the desirable dexterity and strength capabilities of the barehand, optimizing the trade-off between protection and performance. The pattern for selective protection was arrived at based on existing research, and two pairs of gloves incorporating different levels of protection have been prototyped and are currently being tested using a battery of performance tests and a11 Algometer test for pressure sensitivity. A battery of tests was developed to evaluate a new glove design which used the principle of selective levels of protection over different parts of the hand, in order to maximize protection, and nininize loss of dexterity. The test battery comprised of four dexterity tasks and a maximal voluntary grip strength task. The battery assessed the perfonnance of 5 hand conditions, barehand, single glove (one layer), double glove (two layers), and two prototype gloves, one with one layer of protection (contour glove) and the other with four layers of protection over selected parts of the hand (laminar glove). The evaluation compared the performance of the prototype gloves developed with respect to the pei-fonnance with the double layer glove and the single layer glove. The results indicated that the performance of the prototype gloves was comparable, aid that the performance times for the double glove and the two prototype gloves tested were not significantly different. For the test of grip strength, the two prototype gloves tested enabled better performance than the double glove. The assembly task performame for the prototype I1 (laninar glove) was significantly lower than that of the other glove types tested INTRODUCTJONThe hand is Drobablv the most comdex of all anatomical structures in ihe human bod?. The commonly available hand protection are gloves, mittens, finger cots and gauntlets, made of several materials, such as leather, cotton, rubber, nylon, latex, metal and in combinations of the same, to provide maximum protection against the specific condition being guarded against. The use of gloves, although a necessity in many work places, has some associated disadvantages. Gloves have been found to affect hand performance adversely, and the performance parameters affected are Dexterity
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