Ergonomic assessment and workstation design of shipping crane cabin in steel industry

Ergonomics plays vital role to improve health and productivity at workplace and in last two decades it find importance to redesign workplace. All Indian industries had taken initiative to redesign their workplace to overcome various musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) and work related injuries. In this context, the project has been carried out in an integrated steel plant located in central India where most of the crane operator was continuously suffering from muscular pain in different body parts. Risk of MSD was identified by detailed questionnaire from 27 crane operator. It was revealed that almost all crane operators were continuously suffering from some kind of MSD. Based on the anthropometric data of 50 percentile Indian male, ergonomic assessment, redesign and evaluation of crane cabin was carried out in CATIA-V5 software. To check the compatibility of the design, rapid upper limb assessment (RULA) for both existing as well as modified crane cabin was performed. This study shows that intervention of ergonomics in workplace reduces the mismatch between man and machine and makes workplace comfortable for work. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.