Analysis of observational techniques for assessing working postural loads in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) industry

Small Medium Enterprise (SMEs) products industries consist of various job loads that involved handling process from raw food part to the packaging as end products. In this study, the working environment of potato tubers processing in rural area was used for the study assessment. However, this kind of job requires high force job load and awkward postures thus contribute to cause Musculoskeletal Disorder (MSDs). This field of study is to assess the risk of manual handling activities by comparing using the observational techniques and Cornell Musculoskeletal Discomfort Questionnaire (CMDQ)to ol. The CMDQ tool was applied to study the prevalence of WMSDs by through interview session and direct observation using digital camera during the visit. The Rapid Upper Limb assessment (RULA) and The Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) methods used and categorised in this study. The collected data analysed and appropriate recommendation for ergonomic intervention will be proposed to reduce the risk level of the task. To determine the effectiveness of the proposed solution, table of comparison using RULA and REBA with marks evaluation were conducted. With associated to CMDQ tools, the results show that the most body discomfort areas were recorded in the shoulder about 80 %, followed by lower back (75%), forearm (75%), wrist (75%), upper arm (70%), thigh (45 %), knee (40%) foot (35%) and lower leg (20%). For RULA and REBA score mostly they are rated in ten (10) and (7) score, meaning that the higher the grand score the high recommendation and investigation need to be done to prevent any injury. Chi-square analysis revealed a significant association between the number of person complains pain in the shoulder, lower back, forearm and wrist and the RULAfREBA score grand score Ip < 0.05). Based on the result obtained so far, it is shows h tth ere is a risk on the working posture task 1 (cutting raw part potato tubers) and task 2 (sliced potato tuber with machine). This study also includes on minimizing and eliminating the risk of work related to entire body disorder exposure.