The Analysis of Ergonomic Risk Factors Effecting Health Problem on Workers from Harvesting Activity in Oil Palm Plantation

Abstract

Oil palm plantation consists of several activities such as harvesting, manuring, and spraying are exposed to ergonomic problems in their routine work. Although many technology advances have been developed, harvesting process is still using manual tools and need strength, energy, skill, and technique which exposed to the high postural risk. The environment and work nature also hazardous to the workers can cause accidents and ergonomic pain. This study aimed to determine ergonomic risk factor such as worker’s attitude, training, skill and management that influence to high pain experience, identify the common accidents faced by workers during harvesting activity and determine the relationship between risk factor toward pain and accident experienced. This study was conducted on 44 workers who involved in harvesting activity at Pembangunan Pertanian Melaka Sdn Bhd. The data were collected through survey method using structural distribution questionnaires and the data analysis involved were descriptive analysis, regression analysis and correlation analysis. The result showed that the common accident and pain experienced by the workers was neck, shoulder and lower back. Besides, the result showed that the training is the main factor that contribute to the high pain experienced and accident. Correlation analysis was found that there a positive correlation between training and ergonomic risk factor since the p-value is 0.02 less than 0.05. As a conclusion, this study gives an advantage in the oil palm plantation sector in terms of safety and health for future planning to reduce ergonomic pain and indirectly help in improve workers productivity.