Workplace design for elderly Singaporean population using anthropometric modeling

Abstract

Singapore is aging rapidly and is likely to become an Aged Society in coming

years. In order to design for a wider range of people, it is important to design

Singapore's products and workplace equipment to suit the aging population.

Anthropometric dimensions of people change as they age. Reported dimensional

changes from various sources are used to scale down the recently collected

Singapore anthropometric data (Tong Xin, 2011). Using the scaled anthropometric

data workplace dimensional mismatches are identified in three chosen workplaces

that are likely to be used by elderly people. As expected, the selected workplaces do

not suit elderly population. Recommendations based on the books by Stephen

Pheasant, Mark S. Sanders and Ernest J. McCormick are adopted to make necessary

dimensional changes to ensure these workplaces are usable by most elderly people.

Jack 6.1, a Human factors and Ergonomics software is used for postural assessment.

The software was used to identify human joints that are likely to exceed its comfort

range for each workstation, using appropriate design and task decisions. Although

this approach can be used to develop and design workstations for different target

population, the collection of anthropometric data is both costly and time consuming.

Therefore, designers generally use "Proportionality constants" and readily available

databases of the intended user population. The most commonly used ratios are those

presented by Drillis and Contini in 1966. The method uses "Stature" to predict the

relevant anthropometric body segment lengths with sufficient accuracy. The

anthropometric difference due to ethnicity and the anthropometric changes due to

the improved nutrition diets that people eat now compared to people used for the

study by Drillis and Contini raises a question, "How accurate is the method?" The

finding by Drillis and Contini is revisited by calculating correlations among many

measures from data obtained in various recent anthropometric surveys and by

calculating the mean ratio. From the analysis, it is found stature is better associated

with limb segment lengths and weight with widths and girth. Head, hand or feet

dimensions have better correlations with anyone of its own association rather than

stature and weight. This study concludes that appropriate workplace designs for

elderly Singaporeans can be based on anthropometric proportionality and computer

modeling approach using recent anthropometric data.