Creating a culture of prevention in occupational safety and health practice: Perceived body discomfort in two sitting positions

Prolonged sitting is one of the factors for back discomfort. Sitting in the same position for long periods of time is worse. This experimental based study was conducted to achieve three objectives. There were to 1) identify whether is there any differences between perceived body discomfort among respondents before and after upright sitting, 2) identify whether is there any differences between perceived body discomfort among respondents before and after slump sitting and 3) compare the level of perceived body discomfort among respondents after two sitting postures. Thirty young and healthy adults were recruited as study respondents. Each respondent was asked to sit in a posture either upright or slump for 30 minutes. Respondents were then rated their body discomfort using Borg CR-10 scale before and after sitting. Another sitting posture was carried out after one day interval. There is a significant difference between perceived body discomfort among respondents before and after upright and slump sitting. Body discomfort of upright sitting was shown significantly greater than slump sitting. Although, slump sitting caused less discomfort than upright, but it proven by previous studies did not provide benefit to occupational safety and health practice in preventing occupational health related disease

Development of an Alumni Feedback System for Curriculum Improvement in Building Technology Courses

In this fast-paced world, the needs of the world of work and the global market is changing at an unprecedented speed. Therefore, institutions of higher learning need to constantly adjust their programs to fit into these needs. The study aimed to develop an alumni feedback system for curriculum improvement in Building Technology courses. The study highlighted the benefits of an alumni feedback system compared to a manual questionnaire method or other methods of curriculum improvement. The web-based system was designed through use case and system block diagrams. Thereafter, the webbased system was programmed using HTML, CSS, MySQL and PHP. Screenshots of the web-based system was presented. The alumni feedback system comprises of background information of the alumni, perception test on the impact of the course content and a review of the course content for curriculum improvement. Since this is a preliminary study, future studies would be based on analyzing data obtained in the database in terms of the numerical and text data. This study can be adapted for other programmes for the purpose of curriculum improvement

Effects of night shift work towards health and safety of production workers

Introduction : Shift work is practised in manufacturing industry to increase production capacity up to three times compared to the normal daily eight hours working system and able to optimize the utilization of machine and equipment. However, shift work has negatif effects on human social interaction, health and safety. Methodology : The study was conducted to evaluate production workers’ perception on the effects of working at night shift. The respondents of the study were production workers in Company X in Kuala Lumpur. The Data was collected using self administered questionnaires. The study objectives was to study the work schedule design, to find out their perceptions on the effects of night shift and to study on personal factors, employees’ level of acceptance on the work schedule design and personal factors that cause safety and health disruption. Result : A total of 200 production workers participated in the study. The result of the study shows 61% of production workers took sick leave and 43.5% were absent between 1 and 2 times a month. In terms of health and safety disruption, 77% of respondents agreed that they faced lack of focus with family and friends, 75.5% of them did not have enough sleep and 76.5% felt sleepy during working time. Regarding the work schedule and workstation design, 81.5% said they felt uncomfortable because they were required to stand during working and 77% felt that the resting period provided by the factory was too short and inadequate. More than 70% of the respondents proposed the rest period should be extended from the current 40 minutes to one hour. More than 80% of respondents agreed they would feel comfortable if standing at work is changed to sitting work system. Conclusion : To minimize the unwanted effect of night shift among the production workers, the company Should evaluate the present working schedule and work station design

Application of Sampling Plan Methods: Case of Indonesian Sugar Company

A study of sampling plan for controling the quality of bags in a sugar company has been done. The data was taken from 25 random samples for several methods applied including Variable Single Sampling, Quality Index Sampling, and Attribute Proportion Sampling. It was found that the best sampling method is Variable Single Sampling, that gives significant result for all tested parameter and offer an efficient way for the company in doing the inspection and quality control

Investigation of oil palm harvesting tools design and technique on work-related musculoskeletal disorders of the upper body

The oil palm industry is one of the important sectors in Malaysia. The growth and development of this industry shows that Malaysia is the world second-largest oil palm producers. However, in the fresh fruit bunch (FFB) harvesting process, the harvesters are exposed to many types of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). The FFB harvesters tend to develop WMSDs especially the shoulders and trunk. Hence, it is important to identify the exposure levels, awkward postures and the reaction forces of muscle activity based on the posture and movement of the harvesters when using pole, chisel and loading spike during the harvesting process. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of the design of oil palm FFB harvesting tools on WMSDs of the upper body. Rapid Upper Limb Analysis (RULA) was used to investigate and assess the exposure level on the harvester body during the harvesting process. The assessment showed that the shoulders and trunk have high exposure level and undergo awkward posture. Human Musculoskeletal Model Analysis (HMMA) was used to identify the reaction force exerted on the muscle during the FFB harvesting process. In this study, 4 muscles were analysed including Triceps, Biceps, Erector Spinae and Psoas Major. The highest reaction force of 16.36 N was found on the left triceps when handling a loading spike. In conclusion, it is important to address the risks by reviewing all possible aspects that contribute to the WMSDs and interventions on the tool design, task and working shifts may be required

Best practice network business model for internationalization of small and medium enterprises

Best Practice Network, Internationalization, Small and medium enterprises, Business model design, Business model ontology,

An innovative sampling scheme for resubmitted lots by attributes

[[abstract]]Govindaraju and Ganesalingam (Govindaraju and Ganesalingam in Commun Stat-Simul Comput 26(3)1163–1176, 1997) proposed a single-sampling plan for resubmitted lots, referred as resubmitted single-sampling plan (RSSP). This study introduces an innovative sampling scheme for refining the performance of RSSP, and we denote the new resubmitted single-sampling plan by NRSSP. The NRSSP incorporates all information in the sequence of the numbers of defective products from testing all resubmitted lots to make lot acceptance decision. Moreover, a sufficient condition such that three competitive optimisation procedures reach identical resampling plan is determined. Compared with the RSSP, the NRSSP is more powerful to reach a lot acceptance decision. The NRSSPs are established for three real examples to minimise the average sampling number function and a total cost function and to meet the specific risks of producer and consumer, respectively. Moreover, the performance of the NRSSP is compared with the repetitive-sampling plan and double-sampling plan.[[notice]]補正完

Safety, Ergonomics and Human Factors in Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems

In the recent years, the adoption of reconfigurable systems represents a primary strategy to improving flexibility, elasticity and efficiency in both manufacturing and assembly. Global markets, the increasing need for customization, high quality standards, dynamic batches and short life cycles are the key factors driving the transition from traditional to reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMSs). Despite their automation level, such systems still require actions by human operators, e.g. material handling, WIP load/unload, tool setup, etc. These operations rise safety issues because of the human–machine interaction and cooperation. Particularly, RMSs require changes of auxiliary modules and tools, based on the manual intervention, to achieve effective system configurations enlarging the produced mix. In this field, embracing the emerging Industry 4.0 technology, a lack of procedures and reference approaches exists to supporting companies and practitioners in analysing the impact on safety and ergonomics coming from the switch from standard to RMSs. This chapter, after revising the literature, standards and reference guidelines, converges to an innovative methodological and operative framework supporting and spreading the integration of safety, ergonomics and human factors in the emerging reconfigurable systems. Deep attention is paid to best-in-class examples, from industry, to strengthen the industrial perspective and applicability