Ergonomic risk assessment - Case study of an industry of low-voltage electricity installations (Poster)

Musculoskeletal lesions are found topmost in the indicators of occupational diseases as related to disturbances in workers’ health. These injuries affect muscles, tendons, skeleton, cartilages, ligaments and nerves, being still quite common in industry, especially when there are requests or organizational requirements which determine that the workers exposed themselves to risk factors, such as repetitive movements, inadequate postures, manual handling of loads, organizational factors and located mechanical pressure. This study consisted of the identification and assessment of ergonomic risks associated with working postures and manual handling in all the activities in an industry that produces installations to low-voltage electricity distribution, covering the four sections (machining, painting, assemblage and electrification) that form the company’s production sector. The study also involved the presentation of solutions, like preventive measures of musculoskeletal disorders. The first phase consisted of a questionnaire application and the second phase consisted in the ergonomic risk assessment. The sampling design was composed by 98 assessments on 22 workers. The ergonomic risk assessment methods used were REBA and KIM. After the data collection, they were analyzed in Ergofellow 3.0 and SPSS 19 software.  The existence of ergonomic risk situations was verified, related mostly to the postures adopted by employees in the tasks’ development. The tasks that showed a higher risk levels were the tasks of welding (MAG welding) and cut cardboard to pack the electrical switchboard. Also the manual handling of loads showed significant levels of ergonomic risk.