title: Development of a safety index for manual lifting tasks.
abstract: The concept of a safety index (SI) for assigning a worker to a particular manual lifting task is developed, and a simple formula for its calculation is presented. The proposed index is based upon the combined measure of acceptability of the biomechanical and physiological stress responses of the worker to a lifting task. Individual capacity norms, as opposed to the norms usually given based on population percentiles, are also defined. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the SI approach.
authors.affiliation: Industrial Engineering Department, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky 40292, USA.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Karwowski
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mital