An integrated approach for designing office chair with ergonomic consideration

Ergonomic consideration for designing an industrial or office work environment, taking into account both psychological and physical needs of employees, helps to enhance employee's efficiency and productivity. It is essential to find optimum parameters that determine the design of a product, which possesses the characteristics not only to appeal to the users but also reduce fatigue and injury during use. Since most of the psychological needs of customers are difficult to express quantitatively, an integrated approach using statistical and artificial intelligence techniques has been proposed in this article to effectively handle subjective characteristics during the design phase. The approach has been demonstrated by using the design of an office chair. The design parameters have been compared with dimensions outlined in Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).