Track: Human Factors and Ergonomics

Abstract

The filling station plays a substantial role in the paint manufacturing industry where manual activities are omnipresent. An ergonomic study was conducted at the filling station of a renowned paint factory in Bangladesh since this factory includes numerous manual activities. A highly repetitive manual lifting job was selected among those tasks for measuring the Lifting Index (LI) as a mean of quantifying the risk since that continuous lifting job looked susceptible to musculoskeletal disorders and lower back pain. The VLI (variable lifting index) method which takes biomechanical, physiological, and psychophysical into account was used for determining the LI. The value of the LI for the existing layout was found to be greater than 1, bearing the significance that this task can be the impetus to back pain in the future. To resolve the problem, an improved optimized ergonomic design was suggested that could lower the LI to a safe level (LI < 1). The implementation of the improvised design will lessen the risk of lower back pain for the workers performing that task.