Anthropometric accommodation percentage comparison for univariate and multivariate representative Mexican hand models.

BACKGROUND: Adopting awkward postures at work has a great impact on productivity and work-related musculoskeletal disorders. Considering anthropometric data in the design of products and workplaces can diminish this impact. The traditional univariate-percentile-approach is one of the most implemented in the anthropometric analysis, even though it has proved limitations in comparison with multivariate-approaches. OBJECTIVE: To develop univariate and multivariate hand models considering four anthropometric dimensions, and to theoretically compare the univariate and multivariate accommodation percentages. METHODS: Univariate percentile models corresponding to the database of real subject nearest-neighbors to the 5th and 95th percentiles were obtained for the male and female population. Two multivariate approaches were implemented on the central 90% of both populations: 2D principal component analysis and archetypal analysis. The accommodation percentage for each family of models was obtained based on the population that simultaneously fit all the anthropometric dimensions. The goodness-of-fit and McNemar's tests were performed to statistically analyze the accommodation percentages. RESULTS: Eight human hand models were obtained via Principal Component Analysis while two, three, four, and eight Archetypal Analysis models (male-population) and two, three, six, and eight Archetypal Analysis models (female-population) were selected after a root-sum-of-squares analysis for k = 1, ...  ,10 archetypes. CONCLUSION: The results showed that the Principal Component Analysis models obtained a higher accommodation level, followed by the Archetypal Analysis and percentile models (male population). In the case of the female population, models obtained by multivariate-Archetypal Analysis (k = 8) obtained a higher accommodation percentage.

Comparison of univariate and multivariate anthropometric accommodation of the northwest Mexico population.

ABSTRCTErgonomic workstation design is crucial to prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders. Many researchers have proposed multivariate analysis for human accommodation. However, no multivariate anthropometric analysis exists for the Mexican population. This study compares common multivariate human accommodation approaches (e.g. principal component and archetypal analyses) and clustering techniques (e.g. k-means and Ward's algorithm) with the classical percentile-based univariate accommodation approach, using the Chi-squared goodness-of-fit test and the McNemar's test. The theoretical accommodation percentage obtained by multivariate approaches was higher than those obtained by the percentile univariate approach considering the central 98% data. k-means and archetypal analysis obtained similar and the highest accommodation values, followed by Ward's algorithm and principal component analysis. The study findings can be deployed to assess the design of workstations in Mexico, such as electronic components assembly and crew designs, and the effects of different anthropometric measurements in human accommodation. Practitioner summary: Products and workplaces design are commonly based on the classical univariate approach, using the extreme percentiles. In this study, multivariate approaches were tested on dimensions for sitting workstations, and results showed a bigger accommodation level in comparison to the univariate 1%-99% approaches. Abbreviations: RHM: representative human model; DHM: digital human model; PCA: principal component analysis; AA: archetypal analysis (AA); PCs: principal components; FA: factor analysis; RSS: residual sum of squares; SSE: sum of squared estimated errors; WA: Ward's algorithm; DBI: Davies-Bouldin index; CHI: Calinski-Harabaz index; SI: silhouette index; SH: sitting height; EHS: eye height, sitting; AHS: acromial height, sitting; PH: popliteal height; KHS: knee height, sitting; BPL: buttock-popliteal length; BKL: buttock-knee length; FGR: functional grip reach; AD: anthropometric dimension; E: expected; A: achieved.