Designing Cyclic Job Rotations to Reduce the Exposure to Ergonomics Risk Factors

Abstract

Job rotation is an administrative solution to prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders that has become widespread. However, job rotation schedules development is a complex problem. This is due to the multi-factorial character of the disorders and to the productive and organizational constraints of the real working environments. To avoid these problems, this work presents an evolutionary algorithm to generate rotation schedules in which a set of workers rotate cyclically over a small number of jobs while reducing the potential for injury. The algorithm is able to generate rotation schedules that optimize multiple ergonomics criteria by clustering the tasks into rotation groups, selecting the workers for each group, and determining the sequence of rotation of the workers to minimize the effects of fatigue. The algorithm reduces prolonged exposure to risks related to musculoskeletal injuries and simplifies the assignment of workers to different tasks in each rotation. The presented procedure can be an effective tool for the design of job-rotation schedules that prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders while simplifying scheduled changeovers at each rotation and facilitating job monitoring.

A genetic algorithm approach to design job rotation schedules ensuring homogeneity and diversity of exposure in the automotive industry

“…More specifically, it took the algorithm 53 s to generate a job rotation plan, where usually team leaders spend approximately 2–3 h. Thus, the use of GA has the potential to spare the team leaders time for allocation to other important tasks. The reduction in the time to generate a job rotation plan is in accordance with other studies that also used this type of algorithms ( Asensio-Cuesta et al., 2012a ; Diego-Mas, 2020 ; Diego-Mas et al., 2009 ; Hochdörffer et al., 2018a ).…”

Postural stress and risk conditions in manual load handling of Chilean industrial workers

“…21 The study proposes the following measures which should be adopted by occupational health units to improve working conditions: a) evaluate and train the best technique to perform different tasks to make more efficient use of biomechanics and mechanical advantage 22 , b) evaluate mechanical assistance to push loads of greater magnitude or the conformation of task teams to minimize the initial push and/or drag effort 23 , c) review and incorporate the use of working pauses combined with the rotation of workers in different jobs to reduce the repetitiveness component and improve the recovery of tissues and joint structures involved in the execution of activities, and by reducing the stress imposed on the musculoskeletal system in the tasks performed. 24 A limitation of this study was not to consider or preliminarily assess clinical aspects such as signs and symptoms associated with musculoskeletal disorders and organizational aspects, including those that determine the productive rhythms, criteria that would have allowed to clarify if the detected risks compromise occupational health as well as the development of sustainable work 25 .…”

The Impact of Dynamic Tasks Assignment in Paced Mixed-Model Assembly Line with Moving Workers

“…On the one hand, this dynamic context may have some side effects in terms of ergonomics (e.g., workers get stress or over-loaded). On the other hand, job rotation is often used to reduce the exposure to ergonomics risks [7,16]. Finally, the considered problem can be extended to the context of hybrid human-robot collaboration systems, where dynamic task assignments is common.…”