No abstract

Maintenance involves task that is performed occasionally with exceptional conditions. This Shoulder, neck, wrist/hand, feet, low back and waist were among the body parts that recorded high percentage of developing bellow, pain and discomfort. Data gaps include lack of information regarding the prevalence of MSDs in garage worker

Machining of Ti-6Al-4V ELI becomes more interested topic due to extremely weight-tostrength ratio and resistance to corrosion at elevated temperature. Quality of machined surface is presented by surface roughness, surface texture and damages of microstructure of titanium alloys. The turning parameters evaluated are cutting speed of 55 -95 m/min, feed rate of 0.15 -0.35 mm/rev, depth of cut of 0.10 -0.20 mm and tool grade of CVD carbide tools. The results show the trend lines of surface roughness value are higher at the initial machining and the surface texture profile has a strong correlation with the feed rate. At the machining condition of cutting speed of 95 m/min, feed rate of 0.35 mm/rev and depth of cut of 0.10 mm produced the with layer with thickness of 2.0 µm.

Direct and indirect costs of treating Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) are on the increasee and thus financially alarming. Back pain is one of the prominent diseases among oil palm workers. A cross-sectional study was conducted to identify the prevalence of back pain and the observed ergonomics risk factors. The two techniques used were (1) survey using modified Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ) and (2) site observation with recorded working activities. Subjective pain or discomfort on different body regions were used (no pain/ sometimes in pain/ always in pain) to determine the prevalence of MSDs symptoms. More than 100 oil palm workers participated in this study. However, there were only 88 completed survey forms returned. Result shows that the commonest region of complaint was lower back (99%) which consisted of ‘always in pain’ 18% and ‘sometimes in pain’ 81%. This is followed by upper back (85%) which consisted of ‘always in pain’ (8%), and ‘sometimes in pain’ (77%). The complaints of pain were also high at the area of right shoulder (81%) and left shoulder (78%). Awkward posture, excessive force, lifting heavy load are the observable problems that repeatedly occur while workers were performing their work duty. The prevalence of work-related complaint among oil palm workers is high. Due to that, it is important to carry out a systematic ergonomics risk assessment to effectively estimate the ergonomics risk factors that exist in all work processes.

Garage workers always involve with awkward posture as their task being carried out manually in most small scale vehicle maintenance industries. Therefore it is crucial to identify the problems causing awkward posture because it can result to the development of Musculoskeletal Disorder Symptoms (MSDs), which may gone unnoticed and might cause higher compensation cost later. Postural analysis tool using Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) were applied and conducted on nine workers engaging in maintaining three types of vehicle namely car, Multi-purpose vehicle and bus. The evaluation of working postures in different activities is carried out using worksheet of scoring system. Result shows that most of the tasks involved awkward posture and most at high risk level. There is lack of ergonomic awareness and knowledge which contribute more towards high risk of MSDs problem.