Participatory ergonomic intervention for prevention of low back pain: assembly line redesign case.
This paper gives an overview of a participatory ergonomic intervention aimed at reducing low back pain cases in the dispatch department of a catalogue and e-commerce retail company. Based on the findings of the ergonomic analysis and design committee, the company's own employees redesigned the assembly line's layout. As a result of these changes two job tasks that involved manual material handling of boxes, identified by the revised NIOSH equation as posing an increased risk for lifting-related low back pain, were totally eliminated, and the employees responsible for moving boxes from the end of the assembly line to pallets on the ground were given more control over their jobs, and these jobs were also enriched with a new, less heavy task. These results demonstrate that participatory ergonomic interventions are a viable and effective strategy to reduce the exposure to work-related physical and psychosocial risk factors for low back pain.
Departamento de Engenharia de Produção e Sistemas, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Campus Universitário da Trindade, Trindade, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brasil. jmbernardes@yahoo.com
João Marcos
JM
Bernardes
Claudia
C
Wanderck
Antônio Renato Pereira
AR
Moro
D055812:Community-Based Participatory Research; D006804:Ergonomics; D005160:Facility Design and Construction; D006801:Humans; D017770:Lifting / Q000009:adverse effects*; D017116:Low Back Pain; D009314:National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, U.S. / Q000592:standards*; D016273:Occupational Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States