The impacts of the lack of ergonomic vision in mining equipment design projects on the health of workers in the maintenance sector

Aparicio Afonso Dos Santos,Luciana Paula Reis

doi:10.33448/rsd-v10i14.21933

Aparicio Afonso Dos Santos, Luciana Paula Reis

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.33448/rsd-v10i14.21933

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Abstract

This study aims to analyze the impacts of the lack of ergonomic view in the projects of equipment design on workers’ health from the maintenance sector, in the mining industry context. To understand the operators’ health, maintenance activities of three types of equipment were analyzed: pump, crusher and sieve. The methodological strategy of Ergonomic Analysis of the Workplace (EWA) was used. Thus, changes in these activities are required, since some postures adopted for their performance were considered severe and with high risk. Bearing weight above the shoulders and uncomfortable positions are conditions resulted from failures in the equipment designs. To alleviate the problem, it is suggested the adoption of innovative tools or the creation of new supportive devices to improve working conditions of these maintenance professionals.

Highlights

The mining sector deals with several types of equipment whose designs come from a time when ergonomics was not a major concern (Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek & Drozymer, 2013)
Searches carried out in academic databases did not identify in the literature studies that relate the lack of an ergonomic perspective in the equipment design and the illness problems of maintenance teams, especially addressing the mining sector
This study aims to analyze the impacts of the lack of an ergonomic view during equipment design on workers’ health from the maintenance sector in a mining industry

Summary

Introduction

The mining sector deals with several types of equipment whose designs come from a time when ergonomics was not a major concern (Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek & Drozymer, 2013). Searches carried out in academic databases did not identify in the literature studies that relate the lack of an ergonomic perspective in the equipment design and the illness problems of maintenance teams, especially addressing the mining sector. Studies found address this relationship, in other industrial contexts (Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek & Drozymer, 2013), but not focusing on mining equipment as in this article. These changes lead to the need to consider the perception of the “design actors” during the design phase of the equipment, to ergonomic teams find measures that eliminate or at least minimize the negative ergonomic impacts to the operators, during the execution of their maintenance tasks

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