[Design Check. A screening method to assess physical stress]

The "Arbeitsschutzgesetz" as the national German implementation of the EU Framework Directive on Health and Safety at Work (89/391/EEC) demands from the employer a documentation and evaluation of hazards to which employees are exposed. All measures have to be adapted to technical progress and to state-of-the-art occupational medicine, hygiene, and ergonomics."Design Check" (DC) was developed for the ergonomic evaluation of industrial workplaces with special regard to assembly tasks. Designed as a screening tool, ergonomic bottlenecks of a work system are discovered quickly and easily with DC. DC aims to fix and evaluate unfavorable design conditions of workplaces and to reduce physical overload to the lowest level possible. Evaluation of the workplace covers anthropometric, physiological, and biomechanical aspects. Taking into consideration ranges in stature and force capacities instead of discrete values, DC allows a user group-oriented evaluation, independent from the individual worker.DC takes into account the ergonomic design principles from the machinery directive (98/37/EG). Thus, DC enables a prospective evaluation of individual workplaces with respect to their ergonomic design quality and to health-related hazards.