Ergonomic Guidelines for Forest Machines

New ergonomic guidelines to the design and assessment of forest machines have been completed in the Nordic countries. These guidelines will stimulate the development of safe forest machines that is easy to use and maintain. The guidelines are mostly functional regarding the operator workplace, controlling the machine and its tools, and maintenance work. The purpose of the guidelines is to achieve long-term efficiency of mechanised forestry operations. This is done by meeting the demands of the machine operators on health, safety and well-being, which hopefully will help the operators to earn a high and sustainable income. Many of the operators still suffer from pain in the neck and shoulder region. The classification of a machines usability is based on its ergonomic status in relation to work task and duration, tempo and the difficulty of the work.

Task forces in the Nordic countries participated in developing the guidelines. These included representatives from the forest sector and ergonomic research. A comprehensive review was carried out covering scientific knowledge and practical experiences in the area to serve as the basis of the guidelines. After tree years of deliberations and statements, an agreement on the guidelines was reached.