Evaluation of Ergonomic Risks for Construction Workers based on Multicriteria Decision Framework with the Integration of Spherical Fuzzy Set and Alternative Queuing Method

Abstract

Ergonomic risks critically impact workers’ occupational health, safety, and productivity, and thereby the sustainability of a workforce. In the construction industry, the physical demands and dynamic environment exposes workers to various ergonomic hazards. While previous research has mainly focused on postural risks, there is a need to broaden the scope to include more relevant factors and assess them systematically. This study introduces a multi-criteria decision framework integrating the Spherical Fuzzy Sets (SFSs) and Alternative Queuing Method (AQM) to evaluate and prioritize ergonomic hazards. First, SFSs are employed to quantify the linguistic expressions of experts, addressing the inherent vagueness and uncertainty. Then, an entropy-based objective weighting method is adopted to determine the criteria weights. Finally, AQM is utilized to generate the risk priority. The proposed method has been implemented in a real-life construction project, where “overexertion due to unreasonable task organization”, “hypertension and heart diseases”, and “existing WMSD record” are identified as the top three ergonomic hazards. Then, a thorough discussion of intervention strategies regarding different risk categories is presented to facilitate ergonomic interventions. This proposed decision support system can promote effective ergonomic risk management, benefiting workers’ health and well-being and contributing to the sustainable workforce development of the construction industry.