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Ergonomic interventions such as increased scheduled breaks or job rotation have been proposed to reduce upper limb muscle fatigue in repetitive low-load work. This review was performed to summarize and analyze the studies investigating the effect of job rotation and work-rest schemes, as well as, work pace, cycle time and duty cycle, on upper limb muscle fatigue. The effects of these work organization factors on subjective fatigue or discomfort were also analyzed. This review was based on relevant articles published in PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. The studies included in this review were performed in humans and assessed muscle fatigue in upper limbs. 14 articles were included in the systematic review. Few studies were performed in a real work environment and the most common methods used to assess muscle fatigue were surface electromyography (EMG). No consistent results were found related to the effects of job rotation on muscle activity and subjective measurements of fatigue. Rest breaks had some positive effects, particularly in perceived discomfort. The increase in work pace reveals a higher muscular load in specific muscles. The duration of experiments and characteristics of participants appear to be the factors that most have influenced the results. Future research should be focused on the improvement of the experimental protocols and instrumentation, in order to the outcomes represent adequately the actual working conditions. Relevance to industryIntroducing more physical workload variation in low-load repetitive work is considered an effective ergonomic intervention against muscle fatigue and musculoskeletal disorders in industry. Results will be useful to identify the need of future research, which will eventually lead to the adoption of best industrial work practices according to the workers capabilities.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/ authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.Abstract The emergence of implementation and certi®cation of structured management systems, such as the occupational health and safety management system, implies that companies should be able to measure the results and achievements from such implementation. This paper focuses on the description and comparison of the traditional indicators of health and safety performance and the use of different safety performance indicators, such as the companies' safety culture. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the safety measurement performance process and analyze what is the potential role of safety culture in this process.Keywords Health and safety, Performance measurement (quality), Health and safety requirementsIn the standardized guidelines for implementation of OH&S management systems (for example OHSAS 18002, 2000 and prNP 4410, 2002), a wide range of measures to monitoring and measuring performance are proposed, which includes the use of several methods, such as:J results from risk identi®cation, assessment and control; J systematic inspections using checklists of workplaces; J previous analysis of new installations, equipment, materials, etc. J inspection in order to verify if all machines and safety systems are operational; J assessment of occupational exposure to physical, chemical and biological agents and comparison with established threshold or recommended values; J evaluation of workers behaviors in order to identify unsafe work practices which could be corrected; J documentation and record analysis; J benchmarking of OH&S practices; and J identi®cation of workers' attitudes towards the implementation of the OH&S management system. Davies et al. (1999), analyzing several safety culture/climate tools, group the more frequent items in some``general subject'' groups, such as: J training and competence; J job security and job satisfaction; J pressure for production; J communications; J perceptions of personal involvement in health and safety; J accidents (including incidents and near misses); J perception of organizational/management commitment to OH&S; J merits of the OH&S procedures/instructions/rules; J rule breaking; and J workforce view on state of safety culture.Although sa...