Study and Analysis of Body Postures Using Ergonomic Assessment Tools in Drilling Operations

Karthikeyan Mathesan; Arun Mohan; Visagavel K.; Deepakraja V.; Balaji P.; Selvakumar A.

doi:10.3759/joise.v2i1.3499

Abstract

Ergonomics is one among the major factor that is curiously viewed by the modern world. Musculoskeletal disorder and awkward posture are the two dominant issues in ergonomics. The paper aims at studying and analyzing various musculoskeletal disorders, body postures, and other ergonomic aspects in vertical drilling operation in a laboratory work place using engineering students. Drilling is an operation in which ergonomic issues arise. Drilling is the most common operation in manufacturing industries and in all engineering college laboratory. Many ergonomic issues are directly and indirectly involved in drilling operation. The engineering students were divided into 16 experimental batches and each batch was accessed by one safety professor, two lab engineers and four lab technical supervisors. Every movement of subjects was closely observed and evaluated by two ergonomic tools—Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) and Rapid Upper Limp Assessment (RULA), using ErgoFellow 2.0 software. The overall result shows that the manual feeding (operation no 3) has the highest risk value with a REBA and RULA percentage of 53.33 and 85.71, respectively, whereas the operation of removing the workplace from the worktable have a REBA percentage of 26.6 and RULA percentage of 42.85, which indicates the lower level of risk. Ergonomic aspects have to be included in designing of operating procedure for drilling operation, which helps in reducing the existing level of risk.