About the Energy Expenditure Report

This describes some general information about the Single Task Energy Expenditure functionality.

This prediction model, Garg, Arun 1976, A Metabolic Rate Prediction Model for Manual Materials Handling Jobs. PhD thesis, University of Michigan, assumes a job (that is, a worker task) can divide into more simple operations activities. Once done, the average rate for the entire job (in kcal/min) estimates. This is done by summing up the energy requirements for these individual operations and the energy required to maintain the posture. The time required to complete the job (specified cycle time on the process activities) is, therefore, a very important input to this calculation.

• This is how the system differentiates a two-handed activity from two separate one-handed activities.
  • The prediction model considers body actions, such as stoop or squat as two-handed activities and your input for the arm action is ignored.
  • For other arm actions, the general rule is that if you indicate the same arm action for both arms, then the system considers that to be a two-handed task. This is if only one of the arms is grabbing a load or applying a force.
  • However, if you indicate the same arm action for both arms and they are under a nonzero load or force, then it computes the Kcal information for each arm separately.
    • For example, to apply a push or pull force as a two-handed activity, indicate a push or pull (either at thigh height or chest height) for both arms. Only supply the required force for one of the arms while the other can be zero. Use this logic for holding, pushing (or pulling), lateral arm work, and horizontal arm work activities.
• The beginning and ending postures indicate the actual beginning and end of the lift and does not include the reaching or relaxing postures for the worker. The activities that are very sensitive to these geometric calculations are lifting or lowering, pushing, or pulling, and horizontal arm work. Other activities like walking, carrying, holding, or lateral arm work are more time- and or load-dependent.
• All two-handed lifting/lowering activities are classified with a stoop or squat as the body action. To indicate two-handed lifting/lowering activities that do not require stooping or squatting, you must still fill in either stoop or squat as the body action while specifying task parameters. The system figures out the correct equation to use based on the starting and ending heights for the lifting/lowering activity. The reason is that the system needs the understanding this activity is a lifting (or a lowering) activity. This is indicated by specifying the body action as stoop or squat.

Before invoking the Energy Expenditure, you must replay the task once.

This explains the Energy Expenditure Computation and Report.

Select the compute, the system automatically computes the energy prediction. An output report generates in a new report window. This report can save as a text file.

The report is divided into four areas:

• The report header includes the report title, current date and time, name, gender, and weight of the worker performing the analyzed task, and the name of the task itself.
• The job header includes the user-defined title for a given job, the starting and ending actions, and the kcal input parameters selected during the action input.
• The job results area displays the energy expenditure results for the current job.
• The kcal summary area displays a summary for the analyzed task.

Use the save or use the clear.

Use Refresh to update the configuration after making changes. Select Yes in the Refresh Configuration Confirmation dialog box to proceed with the updating.

This action will start a new configuration; all applied data will be lost. Do you want to proceed?