Assessment of Musculoskeletal Disorder Risk in watch assembly Industry

Bhupender Oulakh, Deepa Vinay

Assembly workers, work-related musculoskeletal disorders, body pain, watch assembly, RULA.

Watch assembly is repetitive, monotonous and highly visual demanding task and has been identified as a likely contributor to the development of work related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). A large number of the young workforce was engaged in assembling units where the design of the workstation and work environment does not adequately fulfill the ergonomic requirements for correct manual assembly. Due to the poor ergonomically designed workstation workers had to adopted the awkward work posture which leads to musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and the occupational health hazards. Therefore, a survey of watch assembly industry was conducted to assess the prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal disorders among female workers. The 120 respondents were selected from two units among which one was carrying out manual assembly and another one automatic assembly line. RULA (Rapid Upper Limb Assessment) was used to assess the working postures and recommend the changes to be made. To examine the prevalence of body pain body map was used. Frequency and percentage were used for the analysis of data. This study has shown that women workers involved in assembly work were confronted with WMSDs. Watch assembly workers carrying out repetitive tasks with hands and fingers, and working in awkward postures had high pain prevalence in the neck, upper back and lower back pain. Thus it is clear that due to adoption of awkward postures at work for a prolonged period of time, the female assembly workers suffer from high rate of work related musculoskeletal disorders.