Ergonomics risk assessment of electronic assembly workers in the industry

Abstract

The electronic manufacturing and assembly requires working process with machine control and inspection of products. Workers might expose to ergonomics factors such as awkward posture, repetitive /forceful movement caused subsequence musculoskeletal disorders. This study aimed to assess the ergonomics risk among electronic assembly workers in the industry. There were 354 workers from production process participated in this study. Data were collected by the structural questionnaire and postural risk assessment using BRIEF survey, Rapid Upper Limbs Assessment (RULA), Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA). The results showed that most workers were female (81.36%) and operator position (92.09%). Most of them had work experience less than 5 years (75.71%), working over-time at least 3 hours a day (99.70%), and had repetitive work (83.62%). Based on BRIEF^TM survey, data showed that some parts of body including upper limbs, neck and back exposed to the ergonomic factors with high risk. Ergonomics risk evaluation by REBA for the posture of standing/walking and controlling the machine showed risk level 4 to level 5 (high to very high risk) for 44.60%. Ergonomics risk assessment based on RULA identified that most outcome risk among all workers were at level 3 to level 4 (57.63%, high to very high risk) which suggest for implementation need. The significant findings were high risk level of workers with posture of sitting and standing/ walking (68.49%) and among workers at the station of feeding materials into the machine (77.70%). The outcome risk levels from REBA and RULA showed a significant correlation with linearity that point out of the suitable tool of RULA for ergonomics risk assessment in electronic assembly workers. The results of high risk level suggest for an improvement to a proper ergonomics station and, particularly, in standing/walking or feeding materials into the machine, promoting ergonomics training for safety posture in order to prevent musculoskeletal disorders among workers in the electronic assembly manufacturing.

Keywords: , , , BRIEF^TM survey