Exposure level of ergonomic risk factors in grocery retail industries

• Main Authors: Abdol Rahman, Mohd Nasrull, Ahmad Zuhaidi, Muhammad Fareez
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Medwell Journals 2018
• Subjects: T Technology (General)
• Online Access: http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/5542/1/AJ%202018%20%28571%29.pdf; http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/5542/; http://dx.doi.org/10.36478/jeasci.2018.6354.6358
• Institution: Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia

Generally, grocery retail work requires manual material handling tasks that Involve Ergonomic Risk Factors (ERFs) such as posture, repetition and movements. The aim of this study was to examine the level of Ergonomic Risk Factors (ERFs) among material handlers in grocery retail industries. This study was conducted by using two different types of tools which were Workplace Ergonomic Risk Assessment (WERA) and Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) as a direction observation method. For WERA method, results showed most of them experienced high exposure level for leg and contact stress while for REBA method, results showed most of them experienced medium exposure level for upper arm and trunk. From the research conducted, MSDs and ERFs do related as it showed that musculoskeletal disorders may arise if the workers ignored the safety in ergonomic risk factors. Hence, some ergonomic improvements are needed in order to prevent workers from developing MSDs.