Hsin-Chieh Wu

Chaoyang University of Technology · Department of lndustrial Engineering and Management

Estimating the cycle time of each job in a wafer fabrication factory is critical. An equally critical problem is to estimate the range of a cycle time. This topic has rarely been discussed because most existing methods for range calculation establish only a symmetric range. However, a symmetric range does not meet the requirements of managerial app...

This study designs and evaluates a new nail clipper for the elderly using ergonomic methods. The nail clipper usage problems and requirements were collected first. After requirement analysis we applied ergonomic simulation in redesigning the nail clipper and developing a pedal plate. A usability test was conducted to evaluate both typical and newly...

Cycle-time management plays a crucial role in improving the performance of a wafer-fabrication factory, beginning with the estimation of the cycle time of each job. Although this topic has been widely investigated, several problems still need to be addressed, such as how to classify jobs suitable for the same estimation mechanism into the same grou...

Ambient intelligence (AmI) is one of the most important advances in computer technology in the mobile era. By being aware and applying knowledge of ergonomics (human factors), AmI system users will be in better shape and health, become more effective and find using AmI system a more pleasant and enjoyable experience.This special issue contains sele...

This study aims to clarify the relationship between handlebar and saddle heights on cycling comforts by assessing the kinematics, kinetics, physiological loading and subjective perceived exertion rating. Twenty young adults with mean age 24.6 years (SD=0.1) were recruited to participate in this study. A commercial city bike with the adjustable hand...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usability of the self-made universal computer workstation. The 9 handicapped and 10 healthy adults were recruited to participate in this study, in order to understand the performances of computer operation, ratings in comfort and satisfaction for using the tested workstation in different positions. This...

In this study, the fuzzy-neural ensemble and geometric rule fusion approach is presented to optimize the performance of job dispatching in a wafer fabrication factory with an intelligent rule. The proposed methodology is a modification of a previous study by fusing two dispatching rules and diversifying the job slacks in novel ways. To this end, th...

Just-in-time (JIT) is an important topic of lean manufacturing and services, focusing on the reduction of the waiting time, as well as the enhancement of timeliness. In this study, the JIT concept is applied to the application of mobile commerce, ambient intelligence, and ubiquitous computing, which has rarely been explored in the past. As a result...

This investigation identifies the center of pressure (COP) progression characteristics under the plantar region for elderly adults during barefoot walking. A total of 60 healthy adults (30 young and 30 old) were recruited. The young and elderly participants had average ages of 23.6 (SD=2.7) and 70.8 (SD=4.1) years old, respectively. All subjects ha...

The COP progression is the trajectory of the center of foot pressure. Thirty healthy young adults were recruited to participate in this study. All subjects were asked to walk randomly at four different speeds (3km/h, preferred walking speed, 4km/h and 5km/h). A foot pressure measurement system (RS-scan(®) system) was used to collect the center of p...

Objective: The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the visual angle and ambient illumination effects on visual fatigue and performances while viewing from a projected screen for 40 minutes. Methods: Visual angle (16, 24 and 48 min arc of Chinese character height) and ambient illumination (200 and 750 lux) were the independent variables in thi...

This study explores the preferred viewing distance and character size for an electronic paper display for three age groups. Proofreading speed and accuracy ratio were measured during Chinese proofreading tests using the preferred character size and minimum acceptable character size. Data analysis showed that the mean preferred viewing distance for...

For an efficient work-in-process (WIP) control in a factory, accurately fore-casting the future WIP level in the factory is an important task. For this purpose, a hybrid fuzzy linear regression (FLR) and back propagation network (BPN) approach is proposed in this study. In the proposed approach, multiple experts construct their own fuzzy multiple l...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in performance and muscle effort between guideline and preferred setting of keyboard and mouse when using a computer in supine posture. The guideline setting is according to the rules of standard sitting posture; and the preferred setting is freely determined by the subjects. Ten healthy...

An on-road driving experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of e-map format and sub-windows on driving performance and glance behavior of navigation system users. Twenty-eight participants navigated an urban route using the navigation display with 2D or 3D e-maps and either with or without sub-windows. Driver navigation errors and visual...

This study utilized an external logger system for onsite measurements of computer activities of two professional groups-twelve university administrators and twelve computer-aided design (CAD) draftsmen. Computer use of each participant was recorded for 10 consecutive days-an average of 7.9+/-1.8 workdays and 7.8+/-1.5 workdays for administrators an...

Estimating the cycle time of a job in a wafer fabrication plant (wafer fab) is a critical task to the wafer fab. Many recent studies have shown that pre-classifying a job before estimating the cycle time was beneficial to the forecasting accuracy. However, most pre-classification approaches applied in this field could not absolutely classify jobs....

This study presents a novel external device for quantifying accurately keyboard and mouse usage with a high input rate for prolonged periods. Three experimental tasks were performed to determine the effectiveness of the proposed logger. All mouse and keyboard activities were recorded simultaneously using the logger and WorkPace software. Ten univer...

A fuzzy-neural approach is proposed in this study for estimating the remaining cycle time of each job in a semiconductor manufacturing factory, which was seldom investigated in the past studies but is a critical task for semiconductor manufacturing industry. The proposed methodology applies the FCM-FBPN approach with multiple buckets to estimate bo...

Output projection is a critical task for a semiconductor fabrication factory. There are two steps in output projection: predicting the output time for every job in the factory, and projecting the outputs into each period. For enhancing the effectiveness of output projection, a fuzzy‐neural approach is proposed in this study. Firstly, a fuzzy back p...

This study was aimed at better understanding of the effects of ergonomics-based wafer-handling training in a semiconductor fab. The 400 female wafer handlers were given 2h of the ergonomics-based wafer-handling training course. The identified risk factor ratio (IRFR) in the workplace and workers' musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) were collected befo...

This research has highlighted the importance of the prolonged reading of e-book displays, and three popular e-book displays including a personal digital assistant (PDA), an e-book reader (Reader), and a notebook computer (NB) were evaluated in ergonomic perspective. Twenty-two university students (11 males and 11 females) participated in the formal...

This study was aimed at determining suitable character size of an e-book for young adults in Taiwan. Thirty healthy young subjects, 15 males and 15 females, participated in this study. Their age ranged from 21 to 34 years. Each subject was firstly asked to adjust personal preferred viewing distance, as reading from the e-book with SSCT-LCD screen....

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of character size on e-book proofreading performances. Thirty healthy young subjects, 15 males and 15 females, participated in this study. Their age ranged from 21 to 34 years. Each subject was firstly asked to adjust personal preferred viewing distance. The minimum acceptable character size,...

In the recent years, customer relationship management (CRM) is an important issue for marketers. Most of marketing researchers intend to compute customer value and provide valuable activities when customers demand are occurring. Unfortunately, the linkage between customer value and campaign management is still missing. This research proposes lifeti...

Traditional wafer lot output time prediction methods are based on the historical data of the fab. However, the influence of the future release plan has been neglected. In addition, a lot that will be released in the future might appear in front of another lot that currently exists in the fab. For these reasons, to further improve the accuracy of wa...

Many case studies about occupational safety have been recently reported in manufacturing companies. But there are few studies being aimed at analyzing the costs and benefits of these projects about safety improvement in the workplace. This may be due to the difficulty of quantifying the benefits of a safety project, especially the less-tangible ben...

Though there have been reports on the cost or benefit impacts of safety improvement projects, few studies have provided detailed information on the exact costs and benefits. This fact implies that a lot of difficulties still need to be overcome in assessing the exact costs and benefits for safety improvement projects in the workplace. Furthermore,...

Output time prediction is a critical task to a wafer fab (fabrication plant). However, traditional wafer lot output time prediction methods are based on the historical data of the fab. The influence of the future release plan has been neglected. In addition, a lot that will be released in the future might appear in front of another lot that current...

In order to prevent the computer-related health problems in computer users, OSHA has developed a computer workstation checklist. This checklist is divided into six parts, including working postures, seat, keyboard/mouse, monitor, work area, and accessories. It can be used to check the health issues of the computer work settings. The developed intel...

This study was aimed to investigate complete recovery time (CRT) after exhaustion in high-intensity work. Twenty-four subjects were divided into two groups based on the cardiorespiratory capability index, which was measured in a maximum capacity test. Each subject then performed two cycling tests (at 60% and 70% maximum working capacity). The subje...

The semiconductor industry is moving from the production of 200 mm wafers to 300 mm wafers. With the increase in wafer size, the workload of wafer handling tasks is also increasing. This study evaluated the operator's handling capability, and the risk of having musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) for handling 300 mm wafers. Twenty-four female operator...

Semiconductor manufacturing industry is moving into the production of 300-mm wafers. To solve the increased workload problem in manual wafer handling, some personal guided vehicles (PGVs) have been developed to help in the transfer of front opening unified pods (FOUP). This study compares two kinds of PGVs with a traditional cart and evaluates the...

This study was aimed to establish a maximal oxygen uptake ([Vdot]O2max) prediction model using non-exercise variables for young adults in Taiwan. Thirty young individuals participated in this experiment. The accurate [Vdot]O2max was measured using the K4 telemetry system during increment cycling test. A significant difference in ([Vdot]O2max) betwe...

For safe job design, it is necessary to know the maximum acceptable work time (MAWT) for a given workload. The aim was to establish the relationship between MAWT and physical workload. Cycling tests at six different work rates relative to personal maximum working capacity were performed by 12 young adults in the laboratory. The oxygen uptake (VO(2)...

Functional electrical stimulation (FES) has been applied to restore or maintain the muscle activity of paralyzed patients who suffer from spinal cord injuries and related neural impairments for several decades. In this paper, a direct-synthesized arbitrary waveform stimulator for multichannel FES applications is described. A novel element-envelope...

The aim of this study was to determine the maximum acceptable work duration (MAWD) for high-intensity work. Thirty young individuals participated in this study. Their maximum oxygen uptake (\(\dot V{\rm O}_{{\rm 2max}} \) ) and maximum work rate (MWR) were assessed first. Each subject then performed two cycling tests (60% and 70% MWR) on two separa...

The authors describe a low-power lightweight device for long-term ambulatory monitoring of high-risk pregnancies. The portable instrument was developed to monitor fetal heart rate (FHR) and uterine contraction (UC) continuously. It can record the abnormal FHR and UC, and it alerts pregnant women when to go to the hospital to see a physician. The ab...

People with impaired hand function usually rely on using specially designed pointing devices to operate computers. Various devices have been de-veloped to facilitate such persons, however, the optimal way of selecting a pointing device according to individual need has not been addressed to date. An integrated pointing device apparatus (IPDA) was de...

Wrist guards are one of the protective devices widely used for preventing from a distal radius fracture during in-line skating and snowboard-related activities. However, more than half of the people wearing wrist guards sustained a fracture of the wrist on forward falls. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the three factors, materials of wris...

This paper illustrates the design of a multi-channel data logger adopting transducers of electromyography (EMG), electrical goniometry, and accelerometer for onsite measurement of the physical workload of workers. The logger was equipped with a LCD module for displaying operational information and real-time waveform of the acquired signal. A built-...

Cumulative trauma disorders of upper extremities are one of the most common occupational illnesses in industries. When working surface is raised too high or too low, workers may lead to awkward posture and increased workload. An experiment was conducted to collect the measurements of electromyography (EMG) in the laboratory where an EMG system was...

Many complaints of arms, neck and shoulder among computer workers have been reported in the literatures. In order to prevent these musculoskeletal disorders (MSD), to understand work related risk factors more is necessary. This study was aimed at identifying the key ergonomic risk factors for three types of computer workers in Taiwan. The surveyed...

An e-retailer collaborates with other e-retailers to satisfy customer requirements in various ways. For example, in affiliate marketing the affiliate (or associate) e-retailer promotes the products and services of the merchant e-retailer on the affiliate's website for a commission. Another collaboration type is the cooperative exchanging mechanism...

The purpose of this study was to assess the physical workloads for packing tasks in a printing ink manufacturing factory located in northern Taiwan, with an aim to lower the risk of musculos-keletal disorders (MSDs) among the workers. The BRIEF checklist and Key Indicator Method (KIM) were used to evaluate and identify the MSD risk factors associat...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the minimum acceptable viewing angle (MIAVA) for different age groups while reading the Chinese e-book. Ninety subjects participated in this study. Their age ranged from 21 to 70 years, and they were divided into three age groups, i.e. young, middle, and old groups. Each subject was firstly asked to adju...

The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the viewing distance and local illumina-tion effects on visual performance while working with a projection screen. Digital projectors have become more popular. However, studies on visual performance using a projection screen are rare. Viewing distance (3, 6, and 9 m) and local illumination (75 and 450 l...

The purpose of this study was to assess the less-tangible benefits of an ergonomics project performed in a 300-mm wafer fabrication in Taiwan. The studied project was aimed at reducing the risk factors of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) faced by the wafer-handling workers. Firstly, the MSDs checklist was used to identify risk factors for the worke...