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

Lean manufacturing best practices in SMEs

Last two decades had witnessed explosion of researches into the area of manufacturing improvement such as lean manufacturing, total quality management, total productive maintenance and their application within various manufacturing companies such as automotives, electronics, plastics components and etc.It was proven that lean manufacturing was considered as the best manufacturing system in the 21st century.A comprehensive literature review was conducted to get necessary lean information.The review is focused on SME definitions and characteristics.This is followed by reviewing the lean practices and discusses them based on SMEs’ capabilities. The aim of this paper is to present feasible lean practices for lean implementation in SMEs.There are seventeen lean practices which could be considered are feasible and relevant to the SME characteristics.The proposed practices were based on three categories; least investment, feasible to apply in SME and recommended by researcher

Conceptual design for oil palm evacuation to improve ergonomics issues of collecting fresh fruit bunch

Oil palm evacuation are still labour dependent and room for mechanisation may still exist. With the importance of this industry as one of nation’s economic contribution the efforts are still considered viable. In order to reduce, improve and empower labours a new concept design was developed. A mock-up interaction was done in virtual environment in order to assess the ergonomic aspect of the design in order to determine the pros and cons of the concept design. The findings had led to a conclusion for a requirement of a more thorough assessment to assess human machine interaction in terms of biomechanical effects

Conformity to occupational safety and health regulations in Malaysian small and medium enterprises

Regulation on occupational safety and health in Malaysia had evolved from the prescriptive factory and machinery act to a self-regulated occupational safety and health act. However, from the authors’ observation the high standards of occupational safety and health culture that surpass the legal requirement were not widely practiced by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The two main objectives of this study are: First, first, to identify and determine the level of conformity and second, to investigate the reasons of nonconformity to occupational safety and health act regulation in SMEs involved the chemical industry sub-sectors. The survey questionnaire was distributed to 150 SMEs in chemical industry sub-sectors. Forty one of the survey questionnaires were completed and returned, giving a response rate of 27.3% for the survey. Survey data were analyzed statistically using the SPSS software. The survey results revealed that an overwhelming majority (92.7%) of the respondents from SMEs are likely not conforming to the basic requirement of occupational safety and health act. In addition to this, the survey also found that only 3.1% of the management personnel can be considered competent in terms of knowledge, skill and ability in carrying out occupational safety and health regulation within their respective organization. While, 96.9% of the respondents that participated in the survey can be considered not competent. The authors hope results of this survey could assist the relevant authorities in formulating a better policy and strategy for implementing occupational safety and health in SMEs involved in chemical industry sub-sectors

Case Studies on the Implementation of Lean Manufacturing in the Automotive Malaysian Companies

Lean manufacturing is one of the initiatives that many major businesses in the world have been trying to adopt in order to remain competitive in an increasingly global market. The focus of the approach is on cost reduction by eliminating non-value added activities. Originating from the Toyota Production System, many of the tools and techniques of lean manufacturing have been widely used in discrete manufacturing. The purpose of this study is to investigate the approach of adopting lean, the tools and techniques implemented, the changes in the organizations, the problems encountered as well as the lessons learnt. This paper describes the results and findings of four industrial case studies conducted in different electrical and electronics companies in Malaysia. Interviews were conducted with the key personnel to answer some issues which were crucial in this study. Comparisons and discussion were made among the case companies. One of the key findings obtained is that people in the organization should take the lean mind-set and act in the lean way in order to make a lean initiative successful. The application of kaizen and 7 quality control tools are most popular implementation in the selected case study companies as the tools to eliminate non-value added activities

Malaysian Oil Palm Workers Are in Pain: Hazards Identification and Ergonomics Related Problems

Agricultural activities have always been associated with hazards and injuries. Most common injuries experienced by workers are health, safety and ergonomic injuries. It stems from many causes, such as the use of manual tools, incorrect working position, inadequate rest and overloading. This paper aims to reveal the daily hazardous work task of oil palm plantation workers with highlighting the ergonomics problems and risk of injury they faced. Observations of work tasks and distribution of Modified Nordic Questionnaire (MNQ) were performed for every work unit. Worker’s activities and posture while performing work tasks were recorded extensively using camera and video recordings for ergonomics analysis. Results from the observation and questionnaire survey conducted, showed that oil palm plantation workers are exposed to the risk of dangerous work every day. Fresh fruit bunches cutter and loose fruit collectors were having highest body pain complaints and almost from them are having low back pain problems. Therefore, it is necessary for an immediate action from the management in order to determine the current prevalence of ergonomic injuries. Using of manual tools should be avoided and plantation workers should be provided with ergonomics machines that can help them reduce their workload and injuries

Validity Test For Simple Ergonomics Risk Assessment (SERA) Method

Validity test is important during the development of ergonomics measurement. Failure to conduct validity tests will result in the measurement method being developed to be incapable of providing reliable ergonomics measurements. The objective of this study is to conduct validity test on the simple method ergonomics measurement which was developed. The method named Simple Ergonomics Risks Assessment (SERA). Content validity test and criterion validity test were conducted. The content validity test consists of 6 ergonomics experts who actively provide inputs and positive feedbacks to improve the measurement method being developed. Meanwhile, the criterion validity test involves data collection of complaints on body parts among oil palm workers which were derived from Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ) and ergonomics risk assessment scores obtained from SERA. Both findings were tested with the Chi-square test to explore possible relations between the two findings. Results from the test conducted showed that there are significant relations in the scores of neck posture; hip, right and left shoulder, right and left wrists and the right hand associated with fresh fruit bunch (FFB) harvesting activities. In the loose fruits collection, the Chi-square test showed significant relations in the scores of neck posture, hip, right and left shoulders, right wrist, right arm and the left hand. However, there are body parts such as the legs which showed no significant relation. More tests should be conducted to further explore the validity of the method being developed. Findings from both validity tests show that SERA were verified by the experts and tested with validated method so that it is valid to be applied in the future

A Preliminary Study of Postural Problems among Oil Palm Workers: Is OWAS Method Suitable to Investigate Those Problems?

An ergonomics risk assessment is crucial in every organization; various exposure measurement techniques were developed. Among them, observational technique is the most commonly used. In agricultural sector such as in oil palm plantation, ergonomics problems are prominent. Oil palm fruit harvesters and collectors perform various types of manual work activities and work postures, which can exposed them to many different types of muscular skeletal disorders (MSDs). To have the accurate measurement results so that correct control measure could be observational techniques have to be chosen correctly. In this study, postural analysis was conducted to identify and understand the physical loads faced by manual oil palm fruit harvesters. Their activities and postures while performing harvesting and collecting fresh fruit bunches (FFB) activities were video recorded. Later, their body postures were assessed using Ovako Working Posture Analysis System (OWAS) method. It was found oil palm fruit harvesters were exposed to many awkward postures while performing harvesting and manual handling of FFB activities. The authors found it very difficult to quantify the actual load faced by the oil palm fruit harvesters, while they are performing each hazardous posture due to the unavailability of certain parameters such as: posture duration and repetitive work in OWAS. In addition, OWAS was not capable of quantify separately the workload of upper extremities. In essence, it can be concluded that OWAS method due to its limitations was not suitable for conducting postural analysis during harvesting and collecting of FFB

Pembangunan Pelan Tindakan Penerimagunaan Teknologi Mekanisasi

Industri kelapa sawit merupakan sebuah industri yang maju dan memberi manfaat kepada kestabilan ekonomi negara Malaysia. Namun begitu, kerjakerja di ladang kepala sawit adalah sangat mencabar dan para pekerja ladang terdedah kepada banyak risiko semasa menjalankan kerja-kerja harian di ladang. Kebanyakan kerja-kerja di ladang masih lagi menggunakan alatan manual. Terdapat pengurusan ladang dan pekerja yang tidak mahu menggunakan alatan mesin jentera kerana beberapa alasan seperti kos yang tinggi, sukar diselenggara dan membebankan. Kajian ini menggunakan kaedah pemerhatian di ladang kelapa sawit dan temuramah bersama pengurus ladang bagi mengumpul maklumat. Penentusahan terhadap pelan pra-tindakan dilakukan sebelum membangunkan pelan tindakan akhir. Justeru itu, model ini dicadangkan sebagai langkah untuk meningkatkan lagi penggunaan jentera mesin di ladang kelapa sawit bagi membantu meringkan beban kerja yang ditanggung oleh pekerja

Assessment of thermal comfort and optimization of environmental factors at automotive industry

The objective of this study is to determine the dominance effects of environmental factors such as Illuminance (lux), relative humidity (%) and WBGT (°C) on the operators' productivity at Malaysian automotive industry. One automotive parts assembly factory had been chosen as a subject for the study. The subjects were workers at the assembly section of the factory. The environment examined was the Illuminance (lux), relative humidity (%) and WBGT (°C) of the surrounding workstation area. Two sets of representative data including the Illuminance, relative humidity (%) and WBGT (°C) level and production rate were collected during the study. All the data was measured using Babuc apparatus which is capable to measure simultaneously those mentioned environmental factors. The time series data of fluctuating level of environmental were plotted to identify the significant changes of factors. Then Taguchi Method is being utilized to find the sequence of dominance factors that contributed to the productivity of operator at the specified production workstation. From there, optimum level for the three factors will be determine for optimum productivity. Further multiple linear regressions were employed to obtain the equation model in order to represent the relationship of these environmental factors towards productivity. The Thermal Comfort assessments of this station which is the scale PMV is 2.1 and PPD is 19% are likely to be satisfied by the worker. The study reveals that the dominant factor contribute to the productivity at the body assembly production line is WBGT and Illuminance whereas the empirical finding is closely related to the perception study by survey questionnaire distribution