This study evaluates the mental workload in some activities in an electricity generation company in Santa Catarina, Brazil and compares the mental workload measurements obtained using two commonly used measurement methods- NASA TLX and SWAT. The mental workload required by both manual and automated assembly of circuit boards was evaluated. The evaluation of the mental workload showed that comparing these two types of activities, the mental requirements appear to be higher during manual assembly tasks. The methods for assessing the mental workload used in studies of ergonomics show workers' skills and limitations, characteristics of work organization, and facilitate the presentation of quantitative and qualitative results. The comparison of the performance of these two mental workload assessment methods proved a relevant investigation to the field of ergonomics since there are few comparative studies on the performance of these methods. With regard to the overall comparison of the performance of these methods, NASA TLX allows the evaluation of mental workload by analyzing several dimensions of the work situation and presents advantages when compared to SWAT because it can be easily implemented and showed greater acceptance by those who evaluated it
Ergonomics; Mental workload; Measurement methods
