Tilting cars on assembly lines.

• Position: The Workplace

Letting autoworkers sit while they reach into a car's interior could help prevent shoulder and back strain, but another solution might be to tilt the entire car so that workers can stand up. That is the finding of two studies published in Applied Ergonomics. Sitting on a cantilevered chair reduces the stress on the workers' back and shoulders for three common installation tasks, but a different strategy--tilting a car sideways on a carriage so that workers can access the interior while standing--reduces the stress for nine different tasks.

The tilting car carriage appears to be a better overall option for preventing injuries. "Under these conditions, if you can tilt the car, the chair becomes unnecessary," says William Marras, who directs Ohio's Center for Occupational Health in Automotive Manufacturing, where the tests took place.

Honda Motor Company asked the COHAM team to test the commercially available chair as well as the car carrier, both of which already are used in some of its plants and by other...