Ergonomic and Postural Risk Factors among the Assembly Line Workers of a Cosmetics Manufacturing Factory in India

Abstract

The aim of this study was to find out the perceived exertion and postural risk factors among a group of assembly line workers in a cosmetics manufacturing company in India. A prospective study of ergonomic workplace analysis in a cosmetics manufacturing factory was conducted. Initially there was a floor by floor visit by the experts to identify tasks that might be considered to predispose workers to MSD. Nine tasks were identified to be problem tasks among 38 task area visited and a detailed workplace assessment of those nine tasks was performed. Work-station information consisted of duration of work, intensity of work, efforts per minute, break, working postures, working surface, weight of the object, force excretion, etc. Photographs and video recording of the tasks where taken. Rapid Upper Limb Assessment and Strain Index were used to identify risk. Among all the tasks shampoo bottle packing line (n=2), shampoo bottle packing area (n=6), container filling (n=10), Sachet sorting (n=2), Assembly of bottles (n=4), manual filling line (n=2), Manual capping of bottles (n=4) and Chemical Feeding process (n=2) were found to be high risk tasks. Among 9 different tasks in 5 different lines, 3 were assessed with REBA and other 6 were assessed with RULA to find out possible postural hazards. Final RULA scores for all these six tasks were 3, 6, 7, 5, 4, 5 respectively, whereas REBA scores of other 3 tasks were 3-3, 5-3, 9-8 (Right-Left) which suggested the presence of moderate to severe postural risks. Moor and Garg Strain index was used for 8 tasks to measure the rate of exertion. Among the parameters, Duration of exertion was high in 6 tasks, efforts per minute was higher in 7 tasks and speed of work was more in 5 tasks, whereas Hand and wrist posture and Intensity of exertion found to be at risk in 3 tasks respectively.