Noise abatement on automotive manufacturing sites and ergonomics improvement

近几十年来，汽车行业以惊人的速度发展。现代汽车在乘员安全性和舒适性方面取得了前所未有的进步，并集成了一系列新技术，如电子稳定控制、基于雷达的巡航控制和复杂的车载诊断，这些技术有朝一日将实现自动驾驶。因此，汽车产量比以往任何时候都高，仅安大略每年就生产超过230万辆汽车。相比之下，自福特在近世纪前对装配线进行历史性开发以来，汽车工业的制造环境多年来仅得到适度改善，20世纪40年代的人体工程学运动研究旨在提高工人效率并降低重复性劳损的风险。对于装配线上工作人员的人体工程学、健康和安全问题，考虑有限。由于多种环境因素，这些场所的工人越来越多地经历不适和健康问题，其中最常见的是长时间暴露于周期性的过度噪音。本田加拿大制造厂的运输车已被确定为噪音水平高于健康和安全标准允许限值的主要来源。因此，本研究的一个主要目标集中在新的推车设计，以帮助改善加拿大制造商的本田的声学环境和人体工程学。厂预计整个研究过程中开发的知识和方法将大大有利于其他制造业部门和行业，如航空航天和军事，因此，将对安大略和加拿大经济产生重大影响。

The automotive industry has evolved at an extraordinary rate in recent decades. Modern vehicles incorporate unprecedented advances in occupant safety and comfort, and integrate a range of new technologies such as electronic stability control, radar-based cruise control, and sophisticated onboard diagnostics that will one day lead to autonomous driving. As a result, automotive production is higher than ever before, with Ontario alone producing over 2.3 million vehicles each year. By contrast, the manufacturing environment for the automotive industry has seen only moderate improvements over the years since Ford's historical development of the assembly line almost a century ago, with the ergonomic motion studies of the 1940's to improve worker efficiency and reduce risk of repetitive strain injury. Limited consideration has been given to human ergonomics, health and safety issues for those working on the assembly lines. Workers on these sites are increasingly experiencing discomfort and health issues due to several environmental factors, most common of all is exposure to excessive noise of periodic nature over extended periods of time. Transporting carts at the manufacturing plant for Honda Canada have been identified as a major source for noise levels higher than the allowable limits by health and safety standards. Therefore, a major objective of this research focuses on new cart designs to help improve the acoustic environment and ergonomics for the Honda of Canada Mfg. plant. It is expected that the developed knowledge and methodologies throughout this research significantly benefit other manufacturing sectors and industries such as aerospace and military and, therefore, will have great impacts on both the Ontario and Canadian economy.