Assessing the Possibility of Musculoskeletal Disorders Occurrence inthe Mechanical Engineering Laboratory Operators of Educational Institutes

Abstract

Medical issues related to musculoskeletal disorders are the vital contributors towards absenteeism in the modern scenario. Ergonomics is a field that deals with the overall planning of a task to make it suitable for the working personnel while reducing the injuries, particularly the MSDs, and improving productivity. The present work focuses on investigating the prevalence of MSDs among the operators who work in the mechanical engineering laboratories in one of the premier Engineering University in Malaysia. The work considers the impact of working posture to be more significant in the case of the well-equipped laboratory compared to any other factors. Thus, the study involves the application of REBA and RULA analysis for the assessment through manual observation and software evaluation. The evaluation carried out while working on the equipment placed in the selected laboratory sectionsinfers that there is a possibility of the operators developing the MSDs while working on them if not rectified immediately. Besides, the software evaluation outperforms the results obtained using manual observation.