Ergonomic Risk Assessment on Oil Palm Industry Workers

Abstract

Background: This study was an investigation conducted at two oil palm plantations in Slim River District, Perak, Malaysia on the prevalence of back pain among workers in the Malaysian oil palm industry. Many manual handling activities and tasks performed were not designed ergonomically, thus a high prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders was found among oil palm fresh fruit bunches (FFBs) manual workers. The three main objectives of this study were to determine the level of employee awareness on health and safety of manual handling tasks; to recognize the musculoskeletal symptom on the workers body parts; and to analyze their working postures and identify the relevant risk factors.

Methods: Modified Nordic questionnaire was used to collect data in 2012 at two oil palm plantations located in Slim River District, Perak, Malaysia. Later, Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) analysis was conducted for high risk working postures. Seventy workers participated in the study.

Results: 81.4% of workers were aware on the correct methods to perform the manual handling tasks. The upper back and lower back pain were experienced by 87.1% and 94.3% of the workers respectively.

Conclusion: Manual workers have high level (81.4%) health and safety awareness on manual handling tasks but failed to practice it. As a result, 87.1% of them are sufferring from lower back and 94.3% from upper back pain. FFBs loading activity into the lorry is a high risk and changes needed to be done immediately. The two major risk factors identified were awkward lifting postures and repetitive lifting of FFBs.

Keywords: Oil palm industry, Ergonomics, Posture, Musculoskeletal pain, workers