Developpement d'une methodologie de conception de produits integrant des principes d'ergonomie et de conception en vue de l'assemblage

The consideration of human factors early in the design process of a product is an important strategy for preventing ergonomic problems. The designers need support to detect the problems of assembly their design could bring during production. The main objective of this research is to fulfill this need by developing a multidisciplinary and systematic approach integrating the principles of ergonomics as soon as the parts specification and drawing. An ergonomic assessment tool using design for assembly (DFA) principles is proposed. Then, a case study was conducted in a large manufacturing company established in the province of Quebec.;As principal results, twenty-eight criteria of design were identified as factors affecting the work conditions of the operators. Moreover, they were gathered in a simple and convivial tool which can be used by the engineers during their design work and production launch. This tool facilitates the communication between design and production engineers, which is favourable to the identification of problems early in the design and avoid their introduction in the production. The approach suggested was received positively by the trained engineers.;Ultimately, the main outcome of this research is to provide a fast and easy to use multidisciplinary approach which could be applied to product design in different sectors.;To develop such an approach, a review of literature allowed us to identify the problematic aspects and the factors supporting the integration of ergonomics into design. Then a link is established between the problems related to ergonomics encountered at the participating company and the bad design of the product. Thereafter, the study aims at investigating the process of design and development of product as well as the launching on the assembly line to detect the opportunities of integrating ergonomics principles. In this research, a new design process integrating the risk factors of the musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) is proposed. This case study illustrates the application of the ergonomic tool to assess concrete design examples. The study led to the training of about thirty production and planning engineers on this methodology.