부산대학교 도서관

The cashew industry in India is facing a massive predicament of occupational health problems such as work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). The physically demanding task at workplace is one of the main reasons for MSD problems. Indeed the ergonomic interventions have shown to be beneficial in preventing workplace MSDs, yet there is a need for task-specific interventions. In this context, the present study focuses on female workers performing cashew kernel separating (CKS) activity in small-scale cashew units in India. While performing this activity, the female workers adopt constrained non-neutral posture at floor level. This condition may lead to prevalence of MSDs among female CKS workers. The assessment of MSDs among female CKS workers revealed that 76.9% of workers had suffered from prevalence of MSDs during past 12 months. Particularly, the lower back (75.0%), hands/wrist (67.5%), and shoulder (45.0%) disorders were most prevalent. Based on these observations, a simple and task-specific ergonomic workstation was designed through participatory design approach. This new workstation allows workers to sit and work at elevated height instead of sitting on floor. Further, the re-assessment of worker’s posture in the new ergonomic workstation was carried out through Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) tool in CATIA v5 software. Results of RULA have shown that working postures were improved remarkably, and new workstation has a great potential in minimizing MSDs among female CKS workers. In a nut shell, this work highlights the benefit of task-specific ergonomics intervention in a small-scale industry of emerging economies.