Visual inspection tasks play an important role for quality control in several manufacturing processes especially electronic industries of flexible printed circuit boards (FCB). This research was a field study to improve the visual inspection workstation of FCB master pattern, and to reduce both physical and visual fatigues of the operators who performed the inspection task for the 8-hour period of a day. Method: The problems were firstly identified by subjective assessments. The posture evaluation, Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA), the abnormal index (AI), and the perceived body discomfort questionnaire were used and related to the activities of the inspection operators. The lighting conditions were then experimented by a two factor experimental design, in three different levels of illumination and three levels of colour temperature to find an optimal point of lighting condition that decreased visual fatigue and increased performance of the operators. Results and discussion: The results showed that the redesigned workstation significantly decreased postural workload and discomfort of the operators. The lighting condition of the illumination at 1000 Lux and the colour temperature at 4000 K were suitable to reduce eye fatigue and increase visual performance when compared with the old workstation.

Keywords: Visual inspection, Lighting condition, Ergonomic improvement, Printed circuit board.