Ergonomics Improvements of the Visual Inspection Process in a Printed Circuit Assembly Factory

Abstract

An ergonomics improvement study was conducted on the visual inspection process of a printedoccupational health and safety eye problems quality productivity cost savings

Visual inspection : a review of the literature.

“…The study of visual inspection processes at the printed circuit assembly factory in Malaysia described in Section 3.2.6 provides a case in point (Yeow & Sen, 2004). In that study, ergonomic interventions reduced the percentage of defective boards arriving at customer rates from 2.7% to 0.2%, saved the factory over $250k per year, and improved customer satisfaction.…”

“…The inherent instability of cherry pickers, for instance, exacerbates difficulties associated with visual inspection and can be a source of distraction or concern for some inspectors, which can contribute to inefficient performance. Yeow and Sen (2004) demonstrated that careful attention to proper workplace design can have significant payoffs in terms of inspection accuracy and customer satisfaction. In their study, ergonomics interventions were implemented to resolve three problems in a visual inspection process at a printed circuit assembly factory in Malaysia:  Inspector eye problems (eye strain, headaches, watery eyes, and glare)  Insufficient time for inspection (average of 7.5 components per second)  Ineffective search strategy…”

A systematic review of occupational safety and health business cases

“…After applying the inclusion criteria to these papers, we retained 21 articles and one report. Six articles reported on three studies twice so we included each study only once which left us with 18 articles (23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28). In one article, four cases were reported, in another three cases, and in one report, three cases were reported, resulting in 26 cases for use in the review (9,11,24,26,(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42) We excluded cases that: (i) did not concern occupational health but general health interventions such as case studies of influenza vaccination (43)(44)(45)(46)(47); (ii) did not include costs and benefits in monetary terms (48); (iii) did not include productivity measures (49); (iv) did not include the costs of the intervention (50); (v) were economic models only (51); or (vi) had calculated costs and benefits relative only to production (52).…”

Ergonomic weighted scores to evaluate critical instructions for improvements in a printed circuit assembly factory

“…The ergonomic improvements made in the MCI operation were: providing finger work aids for the workers to press sharp components, repairing defective chairs, introducing Sen and Yeow (1999) and Yeow and Sen (1999a). The ergonomic improvements made in the QA operation were: reducing the usage of magnifying glass, minimizing the number of components to be inspected, using no-glare templates, and introducing ergonomic visual inspection sequence.…”