Human digital modeling and RULA analysis for an office chair user in computer work environment – A case study in Indian context

Abstract

The global market size of office chair is around $10.69 billion and it is slowly increasing in all industries, institutes, schools, and universities, etc. Reports of research studies indicate that excessive sitting and improper sitting postures on the chair hurts the health of human and cause low back pain, musculoskeletal disorders in large scale. In this context, very few works have been done. The objective of this work is to design the ergonomic office chair and perform the Rapid Upper Limb Analysis (RULA) for computer users. The design of the chair was modeled based on Indian anthropometric standard data in CATIA-V5 software. The Human digital model (HDM) was designed by considering Indian anthropometric data. In RULA analysis, the final scorecard was generated in both left as well as right side for HDM at the intermittent condition. The score card indicates 2 of HDM. The score 2 represent low risk. The new office chair design is expected to reduce computer work related MSD’s.