Body posture analysis during visual control of fruit and vegetables at different directions and speeds of conveyor belt transport

Abstract

Visual quality control of fruit and vegetables is a com- plex task. Reliability is important to sustain quality stan- dards. Usually the quality control is followed by or car- ried out after other mechanized processes like washing or packing. The expectations on the worker’s performance are influenced by the machine capacities. Nevertheless work place design is conservative even in modern plants; products are commonly transported on conveyor belts passing the worker from the left to the right or the other way around. Thus the man-machine-interface often be- comes a constructive shortcoming. Based on literature the superiority of a changed product transport, namely moving the products towards the worker, was to be ex- amined. A motion analysis was carried out to measure differences in the body postures as well as the amount of movements for the variations of product transport. The influence of the transport direction was very strong, re- sulting in a 100 % larger sum of motion per piece if the goods passed the worker from the right side. Most effi- cient and most comfortable proved to be the transport di- rection towards the worker.