HFS206

Occupational Biomechanics

Group-based Assignment

July 2022 Presentation

HFS206 Group-based Assignment

GROUP-BASED ASSIGNMENT

This assignment is worth 20% of the final mark for HFS206 Occupational Biomechanics.

The cut-off date for this assignment is as follows:

Mid-term Report: 29 September 2022, Thursday, 11.55 pm.
Final Report: 27 October 2022, Thursday, 11.55 pm

This is a group-based assignment. You should form a group of TWO (2) members from your
seminar group. Each group is required to upload a single report via your respective seminar
group site in Canvas. Please elect a group leader. The responsibility of the group leader is to
upload the report on behalf of the group.

Note to Students:

You are to include the following particulars in your submission: Course Code, Title of the
GBA, SUSS PI No., Your Names, and Submission Date.

WARNING ON PLAGIARISM AND COLLUSION

Plagiarism and collusion are forms of cheating and are not acceptable in any form of a student’s
work, including this assignment. You can avoid plagiarism by giving appropriate references
when you use some other people’s ideas, words or pictures (including diagrams). Refer to the
American Psychological Association (APA) Manual if you need reminding about quoting and
referencing. You can avoid collusion by ensuring that your submission is based on your own
individual effort.

The electronic submission of your assignment will be screened through a plagiarism detecting
software, Turnitin.

For more information about plagiarism and cheating, you should refer to the Student
Handbook. SUSS takes a tough stance against plagiarism and collusion. Serious cases will
normally result in the student being referred to SUSS’s Student Disciplinary Group. For other
cases, significant marking penalties or expulsion from the course will be imposed.
___________________________________________________________________________

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

1. Compose your GBA using Microsoft Office PowerPoint, and save either as .ppt
or .pptx (preferred). Submission via Canvas mobile app is not supported.

2. Name your document file strictly in this format:

CourseCode_AssignmentCode_UserID_FullName.
Example: ABC123_GBA01_Sally001_TanMeiMeiSally (omit D/O, S/O).
Use underscore and not space.

3. Multiple submissions are allowed before the cut-off date.

Re-submission is NOT allowed after the cut-off date (including the grace period).
Only the latest submission will be kept. Mark deduction scheme applies.

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HFS206 Group-based Assignment

4. This group-based assignment consists of the following components:

Mark
Component Format of Report Cut-off date
Allocation
• PowerPoint deck, A4 landscape, 1
cm margins, Verdana 16 font (min),
11.55 pm,
Mid-Term Report 20 1.5-line space.
29 Sep 2022
• 2 slides (max), excluding title and
associated slides.
Main report:
• PowerPoint deck, A4 landscape, 1
cm margins, Verdana 16 font (min),
1.5-line space.
• 18 slides (max), excluding opening,
closing and their associated slides.
Final Report
80 • Penalty of 5 marks for exceeding 11.55 pm,
(in 2 components) each slide count. 27 Oct 2022

Appendix:
• Supplementary folder containing
pictures, video clips, sketches,
references, calculations, analyses,
and other relevant materials.

Question 1 (Mid-Term Report)

Current Work Situation

Select a work or industrial situation for this project. It should be a lifting task performed by a
single person in a standing posture. The object being lifted should be at least 8 kg. To ensure
that your selected work situation is appropriate, you should seek advice/approval from Dr
Samuel Lim (samuellim001@suss.edu.sg) before continuing with the project.

(a) Describe the work situation and its preliminary issues.

• describe the lifting task, including
o type of lifting actions involved
o layout and dimensions of the work situation
o dimensions, weight, etc. of the item being lifted
• describe, with appropriate pictures, how the task is carried out
o use camera to take images of the working posture
• describe the preliminary biomechanical issues identified
o briefly discuss the potential detrimental effects on the worker.
(10 marks)

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HFS206 Group-based Assignment

(b) Conduct a literature review

• literature review on the issues and methods involved in this investigation
• greater emphasis on reviewing of relevant journal papers
• marks will be deducted for inclusion of materials from the course notes.
(10 marks)

Question 2

Evaluation of the Task

(a) Analyse the working postures.

• photographs of the working postures are essential
o qualitative analysis of the postures
o this is a required item
• encouraged to also use other quantitative methods
o present the analysis and results
• discuss the results of the working posture analyses
o discuss the detrimental effects of the postures
(10 marks)

(b) Analyse with NIOSH Lifting Equation.

• analysis the lifting efforts at both the Origin and Destination
o state all the multipliers and their derivations clearly
o tabulate all the parameters and the results
o show all the detailed calculations in the appendix
• comment and discuss on the results
o consider the detrimental effects in conjunction with the results from your
analyses of the working posture.
(15 marks)

(c) Analyse with a Free Body Diagram (FBD).

• sketch an FBD of the task
o identify a suitable ‘worst-case’ situation of the task
o use the entire person as a free body
o include all the forces (vertical and horizontal components) acting on the
person
o label the forces accordingly.
(10 marks)

(d) Conduct a biomechanical analysis.

• carry out a biomechanical analysis of the lifting task
• develop an equation for the muscle forces at lumbar
o sketch the external loadings on the person in a diagram (essential)
o equate the moments generated by the external loads versus those from the
muscles to keep the body in equilibrium
o use L5/S1 as the fulcrum
o do not ignore the gravitational effects on the body
(15 marks)

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HFS206 Group-based Assignment

Question 3

Recommended Improvements

(a) Propose improvements to the task.

• consolidate and interpret the results obtained in Question 2 above
• suggest how the task may be improved by making changes to:
o the layout
o the task itself
• verify the suggested changes with NIOSH Lifting Equation
o recalculate RWLs using the new parameters
(15 marks)

(b) Diagram of the revised task setup

• illustrate the recommended setup and task parameters with an appropriately labelled
diagram
(5 marks)

Question 4

Conclusions

(a) Briefly discuss the overall evaluation and recommendation process

• you may discuss some of the problems faced in this evaluation
• what trade-off decisions you had made, and the reasons for doing so
• issues that you want to resolve but were unable to do so
• limitations of the recommended task.
(5 marks)

(b) Provide a concluding remark

• brief conclusion to end the project.
(5 marks)

Important Note
• the main report must be complete and standalone
o do not ask your readers to refer to the appendix for content that should be in the
main report (this may cause you to lose marks)
• imagine this is the report you will submit to your client after completion of the work
o it is customary to provide only the main report to them
o you want to show them the results that will convince them that commissioning you
to conduct the evaluation was a good decision and money well spent.

Submission of Report
• submit Mid-Term Report and main Report to Canvas via Turnitin
• send Appendix folder directly to samuellim001@suss.edu.sg

---- END OF ASSIGNMENT ----

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