Investigation of Ergonomics Risk Assessment Among Manual Assembly Manufacturing Workers in Medical Device Industry

Abstract

Workers in manufacturing industry are exposed to work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) due to ergonomics risk factors such as awkward postures, repetitive motion or workstation design. Aim of this paper is to identify work-related MSD among manual assembly manufacturing workers in multinational medical device industry in Malaysia. Medical device industry is currently a rising sector with great potential growth in Malaysia, thus available research on ergonomics risk assessment is scare. Data collection was carried out with adapted questionnaire from Guideline on Ergonomics Risk Assessment at Workplace 2017, developed by the Malaysia Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) in a company in Penang, Malaysia. The MSD assessment used under the guideline is Cornell Musculoskeletal Discomfort Questionnaire (CMDQ) for standing operation and hand symptoms. A total of 86 manual assembly workers participated in this study. The results show that the most frequent affected body parts with the highest MSD severity scores were lower back and right shoulder. For hand assessment, the most frequent affected hand areas with the highest MSD severity scores were right thumb, right index-middle-ring fingers and right thumb-middle palm. The outcome of the study can serve as initial ergonomic risk assessment for advance ergonomics risk assessment to develop hierarchy of improvement measures as per outline in the guideline for the medical device manufacturing occupational group.KeywordsErgonomics risk assessmentMedical device industryManual assembly