"Jack modelling of accessibility limitations to the Zone of Comfort for hand control locations in mining cabs." Presented by
Sara Perfetto,
Master’s Student, Biomechanics and Neuroscience
, McGill University.
The current design of mining cabs does not consider all potential operators, often designing to only the 95th percentile population. Current cab design is often based on recommendations set by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), specifically ISO 6682. The current designs often cause many workers to adopt non-neutral postures, which increases their risk of musculoskeletal disease. This study examined the reachability of the zone of comfort (ZoC) for hand controls defined by ISO 6682 for the small, medium, and large ISO operators, as well as 5th percentile Indigenous and Latino females. Jack software was used to examine the location of the coordinates defining the ZoC in relation to four mining machine cabs and each manikin’s reach envelope. No condition exists in this study where an operator could reach 100% of the ZoC for hand controls in ISO 6682. Future work needs to revise ISO 6682 and update cab design based on these findings. This study is the first to examine the validity of ISO 6682 from an equity, diversity, and inclusion perspective.