Analysis of multiple activity manual materials handling tasks using A Guide to Manual Materials Handling.
Manual handling of materials continues to be a hazardous activity, leading to a very significant number of severe overexertion injuries. Designing jobs that are within the physical capabilities of workers is one approach ergonomists have adopted to redress this problem. As a result, several job design procedures have been developed over the years. However, these procedures are limited to designing or evaluating only pure lifting jobs or only the lifting aspect of a materials handling job. This paper describes a general procedure that may be used to design or analyse materials handling jobs that involve several different kinds of activities (e.g. lifting, lowering, carrying, pushing, etc). The job design/analysis procedure utilizes an elemental approach (breaking the job into elements) and relies on databases provided in A Guide to Manual Materials Handling to compute associated risk factors. The use of the procedure is demonstrated with the help of two case studies.
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Ergonomics and Engineering Controls Research Laboratory, University of Cincinnati, OH 45221-0116, USA.
D000062:Accidents, Occupational / Q000517:prevention & control*; D000328:Adult; D012090:Cumulative Trauma Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D016208:Databases, Factual; D006801:Humans; D017770:Lifting; D008297:Male; D008370:Manuals as Topic; D012307:Risk Factors; D017751:Safety Management; D016474:Weight-Bearing; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control*