Browsing by Author "Kjellberg, Anders"

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Ett produktionssystem under förändring : ergonomisk och teknisk utvärdering
(Arbetslivsinstitutet, 2005) Kihlberg, Steve; Franzon, Helena; Fröberg, Jan; Hägg, Göran M; Hanse, Jan Johansson; Kjellberg, Anders; Mathiassen, Svend Erik; Medbo, Per; Neumann, Patrick; Winkel, Jørgen
A production system change : ergonomic and technical evaluations An evaluation of the impact of partial automation strategies on productivity and ergonomics at an electronics company was performed. This change included adoption of a serial line flow from a parallel batch flow strategy. The change process, which used both a project head group and a work organisation group, was also studied. The partial automation of assembly operations reduced the total repetitive assembly work at the system level and increased productivity. At the remaining assembly stations however, the repetitive assembly work increased due to the automation of the transportation functions and increased work-pace. The operators found the mental work load was higher in the new system. They also experienced the manual assembly station in the beginning of the line as the worst job in the system . Lack of management continuity at the department was identified as one of the largest process problems. The manager set his view on how the production and work environment goals should be met. Thus the manager set the work organisation without adopting the plan of work rotation that the work organisation group had presented. This contributed to dissatisfaction amongst the operators involved in the development process. Keywords: Automation, change process, ergonomics, manual assembly, mental workload, productivity
Subjektiv stress och dess samband med psykosociala arbetsförhållanden och hälsobesvär : En prövning av Stress-Energi-modellen
(Arbetslivsinstitutet, 2002) Kjellberg, Anders; Wadman, Cecilia
Subjective stress and its relation to psychosocial work conditions and health complaints : A test of the Stress-Energy model A mood adjective checklist, the Stress-Energy (SE) Questionnaire, was used for analyses of subjective stress in four occupational groups: Assembly workers in a car body factory (n=179) and an electronic industry (n=110), employees of a travel agency (n=80) and journalists from a daily newspaper (n=238). Based on the scores in the Stress and Energy scales the participants were divided into for SE groups: Exhausted, Dedicated under pressure, Bored and Dedicated without pressure. The assembly workers were rather evenly distributed among the four groups. Hardly any journalist or travel agency employee fell into any of the two low energy groups (Exhausted and Bored). The journalists were evenly distributed between the two high energy groups (Dedicated with of without pressure), whereas most of the personnel from the travel agency belonged to the group Dedicated under pressure. There was a rather strong relation between the SE grouping and a grouping based on the Demand-Control (DC) model; almost half of the persons in each SE group belonged to the expected DC group. Stress ratings were positively related to demand scores and negatively to social support, but were not correlated with control scores. The Energy scores were correlated with social support an control, but unrelated to demand scores. An analysis of the relation between DC grouping and musculoskeletal complaints among the assembly workers showed that back and neck complaints were somewhat more common in the group with high demands. Complaints were clearly less common among those who had high social support whereas no relations to control scores were obtained. The SE grouping had a much stronger relation to complaints than the DC grouping, for whom the relation to complaints was wholly explained by the effect of demands and social support on the subjective stress level. Thereby the results supported the hypothesis that the effects of psychosocial conditions on musculoskeletal complaints were mediated by subjective stress. Also in the journalist and travel agency groups the complaints were strongly correlated to Stress scores but not at all to the Energy scores. The results provided strong support for the usefulness of the Stress-Energy Questionnaire in stress studies.