Canadian ergonomists seek evaluation training from Auburn ISE doctoral student
Published: Jun 15, 2023 8:00 AM
By Jeremy Henderson
An Auburn University industrial and systems engineering student traveling to Ontario to train Canadian ergonomists in the latest ergonomics evaluation technology and its application doesn't happen every day. But it did on April 11.
That's when ISE doctoral student Murray Gibson, along with his advisor, Richard Sesek, Tim Cook Professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering, presented during the System Ergonomics Collaboration and Knowledge Exchange Day hosted by the Centre of Research Expertise for the Prevention of Musculoskeletal Disorders (CRE-MSD). Based out of the University of Waterloo, CRE-MSD includes 46 network researchers across 13 Canadian research institutions. The center is funded by the Ontario Ministry of Labour and aims to bring researchers and institutions together "to identify the key questions, find the best research answers and pass on the best knowledge that will lead to the prevention of musculoskeletal disorders at work."
Some of that best knowledge now includes advances in the application of multi-task ergonomic analysis models, Recommended Cumulative Recovery Allowance (RCRA) and Fatigue Failure Theory.
"RCRA is a model I developed in collaboration with Dr. Jim Potvin, a prominent Canadian researcher in 2016, and research in Fatigue Failure Theory by Auburn's Dr. Sean Gallagher has spawned three multi-task analysis models: LiFFT, DUET, and the Shoulder Tool," Gibson said. "Naturally multi-task evaluation models are a relatively new advent in the field of ergonomics."
According to Gibson, such models are rapidly gaining the attention of practitioners in the ergonomics community.
"Dr. Sesek and I being invited to Toronto to train Ontario’s Provincial Ergonomists in the science and application of these new techniques is proof positive of that," he said. "It also indicates that Auburn University faculty and students are making an impact, at the international level, in the field of ergonomics."
Media Contact: , jdh0123@auburn.edu, 334-844-3591
Richard Sesek (l) and Murray Gibson (r) pose at the System Ergonomics Collaboration and Knowledge Exchange Day hosted by the Centre of Research Expertise for the Prevention of Musculoskeletal Disorders in Ontario, Canada.
