Task Design and Modification Based on Physical Ability Measurement

Abstract

Appropriate design and modification of industrial tasks must consider the matching of human physical abilities with task requirements. This paper describes the Available Motions Inventory (AMI) as a testing and evaluation system for measuring human physical ability based on components of manual industrial tasks. Using a microcomputer, one can transform the AMI scores (71 for each hand) into raw scores, ability scores, motion class scores, and performance prediction indices. Examples of task modification strategies using the design-oriented scoring of AMI are illustrated. Also, the reliability of the AMI testing system was evaluated using a multivariate canonical correlation analysis. A high test-retest reliability of 0.85 was obtained.