Ergonomic Analysis of Grapevine Pruning and Wine Harvesting to Define Work and Hand Tools Design Requirements

Abstract

Quantitative and qualitative knowledge of ergonomic analysis of grapevines pruning and wine harvesting with respect to postural load, repetitive movements of cutting hand and using different cutting tools was obtained. It could be demonstrated, that stress generated by working postures and repetitive movements combined with were a major problem of work., Ergonomic design deficits of the existing cutting hand tools was carried out.

Biomechanical strains on the hand-wrist system during grapevine pruning

“…This confirms field observations in several vineyards (Roquelaure 1999;Wakula et al 2000). The occurrence of extreme postures in the present study was higher in the U/R plane than in the F/E plane, and this suggests that the strategy used by workers to avoid extreme wrist angles is less efficient in the U/R plane than in the F/E plane.…”

“…The results of the study extended those of two recent studies of the biomechanical load of the hand-arm system during an experimentally simulated grapevine task (Kallionpa¨a¨et al 1997;Wakula et al 2000). One of the most striking results of the present study was the high level of muscular activity during real pruning conditions with hand-powered professional pruning shears.…”

“…The study demonstrated a high biomechanical load on the hand-wrist system of professional workers in real pruning conditions and confirmed ergonomic studies showing hard manual work during pruning (Roquelaure 1999;Wakula et al 2000). The cumulated duration of exposure over the entire day was high, i.e.…”

“…This postural strategy reduces the frequency of awkward F/E wrist postures during cutting as much as possible, so that only a few cuts require the accumulation of high muscular activity and extreme F/E posture. This reveals the skill of the workers and emphasizes the value of biomechanical analysis in real pruning conditions, since this working strategy was not observed in studies of simulated pruning tasks (Wakula et al 2000;Roquelaure 1999). All six skilled workers adopted this working strategy to lower the biomechanical strain on the wrist as much as possible.…”

“…Pruning requires repetitive handgrips and wrist movements combined with static work in the upper armshoulder system (Wakula et al 2000), but little biomechanical information is available to assess physical load precisely during pruning. The aim of the present study was, therefore, to assess the musculoskeletal load on the hand-wrist system during pruning with hand-powered pruning shears in real conditions.…”