The Importance Of Implementing Ergonomics Aspect For Manufacturing Company

THE IMPORTANCE OF IMPLEMENTING ERGONOMICS ASPECT FOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY

SECTION-I

INTRODUCTION

In the manufacture industry, companies always facing problems related with the effort to determine appropriate job design that can increase the productivity of the employee. The job design itself constitutes of an approach to arrange and or specifies the task that constitutes a job for an individual or a group. According to Heizer and Render (2006) the job design activities consist of seven components: (1) job specialization, (2) job expansion, (3) psychological components, (4) self-directed teams, (5) motivation and incentive system, (6) ergonomics and work methods, and (7) the visual workplace.

One of the problems in the job design is about designing production facility in which can meet the efficiency and effectiveness of the employee in performing their task. The appropriate design of the production facility will create a comfortable workplace environment that may affect in employee motivation. Instead of giving an appropriate incentive system to gain more employee motivation, the physical of work place environment also should be considered by the board member of the company as one of the crucial part in improving employee motivation.

In the arrangement of physical work place the management of the manufacture’s company needs to consider the resulting motion of the worker as well as environmental condition in which include the neurological factor, such as the design of hand controls that may affect the worker’s productivity, safety and health. As one component in the job design, the management of the company needs to implement an ergonomics factor to build a good interface between human and machine. Refer to Heizer and Render (2006), Ergonomics means “the study of work”. And the basic reason of the ergonomics study is come from an understanding that the male and female employee come in limited configuration. Therefore, design of tools and the workplace depends on study of people to determine what they can and cannot do. And the appropriate workplace design in which based on ergonomics consideration may will eliminate such gap in the interface relation between human factors and the machine.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze both theoretical and implementation of ergonomics process in the manufacture industry especially related with its affection in increasing the safety and health of the work force. The objective of this analysis also embrace in determining if a participatory ergonomics program leads to reduced physical loading on the body, improved psychosocial environment, reduced pain or fatigue, and improved plant productivity and/or quality so that the company can realize about the importance of implementing ergonomics aspect in designing manufacturing facilities.

SECTION- II

ANALYZING ERGONOMICS ASPECT

In the study of ergonomics process in the manufacture industry we should analyze several aspect that the company needs to consider in the determination of the physical design of the workplace that can support the flexible motion of the workers to increase worker’s efficiency of movement, decreases fatigue and at the end can improving the productivity of the worker. According to Meredith, (1992) there are such aspect of the ergonomics process that company need to embrace:

Anthropometric factors

In the designing workplace, information concerning the proper desk height, handrail size, tool length, and so on must all be available. Without knowing standard body measurements, and variations in those sizes, it would be impossible to design the cab for a truck, or the faucets for a sink. Much of the data available concerning the body measurements of people were originally gathered for special purposes such as cockpit sizes for pilots in World War II. Nevertheless, such data have been put to extensive use many other organizations and situations.

Anthropometric dimension based on the fact that humans vary significantly in size and build. In some situations, it is sufficient to design for the smallest or largest likely dimension. In other situations, adjustable benches, chairs or devices are required for the full range of people.

Figure 1: Anthropometry Dimension in Workplace Design

Neurological Factors

Many task that worker perform relate to sensory perceptions, speed of reaction, and ability to perform simultaneous task. All these task are concerned with neurological responses, and the design of the workplace can improve or hinder such responses considerably.

Muscular factors

Although less common than in earlier days, worker’s muscular abilities are sometimes important, accompanying most anthropometry tables are standard reference tables of muscular strengths. Of more probable importance than strength in a workplace design is the consideration of fatigue. Unfortunately, very little progress has been made in this area, although many studies have been concluded. One of the main problem is that fatigue is not totally a muscular reaction. Boredom, anxiety, and stress play important role as well. To date, the most common approach has simply been the use of an “allowance” a percentage increase in time allowed for a particularly fatiguing work. In figure 2, portraying various of work position which involve the muscular factors of the employee.

Figure 2: Typical clearances for various work positions.

Temperature and Humidity

Although the normal human body temperature is 98.6˚F, worker attempting to produce in an environment which is that warm are extremely ineffective. According to experimental human factor studies, the limit of efficient human performance is about 92˚F; beyond this temperature, performance degrades rapidly. The reason is that our 98.6˚F body temperature is maintained by the “burning” of fuel (food) in a normal external environment of lower temperatures. Many organization now, instead of heating their work areas during colds period of the year also use