Ergonomic characterization of three sugar cane harvester machinery models

Abstract

Due to the latest expansion on Brazilian agricultural area, there has been growing demand for field machinery usage aiming at increasing operational efficiency along with cost reduction on production as well as searching for improvement of working conditions. This paper aimed at ergonomic characterization comparing three models of agricultural harvesters on sugar cane plantations in order to provide information to help decision takers. Each harvester was analysed in 157 items. Results showed that ergonomic design in the three analyzed harvesters had high safety level to operators. Nevertheless, there is the necessity of improvement in some analysed items within operator's working place.