Ergonomics intervention in manual milling operation workstation

Abstract

Manufacturing sector is vital in driving Malaysia’s economy and this project’s focus is to induce the ergonomics and safety concerns in the sub-element of this sector. Manual milling operation is a precise and accurate job that requires the operators stay alert even in the prolonged working hours. The milled product is vital since manual milling operation is a pre-machining process where follow by other machining processes. The behavior of the operators is directly influence the product quality where the adequate solutions have to solve the problem arises from product dimensional accuracy and safe working posture. The intention of this project is to apply technical improvement or being called as engineering control on the manual milling operation workstation. The significant risk factors which influence the product quality and the working posture were being identified through questionnaire surveys among twenty workers in Multi Precision Industries Sdn Bhd (MPI). The analysis of the significant factors were being carried out by using RULA posture assessment method and Design of Experiment (DoE). Furthermore, the findings of the analysis and the preferable design features constituted in the questionnaires were transformed into quality function deployment (QFD) and the best conceptual workstation was selected via concept screening method. Based on the CATIA®-RULA analysis, the implementation of the new workstation would reduce the RULA score and at the same time DoE optimized the new conceptual workstation. This project expects that the new conceptual workstation will greatly improve the product dimensional accuracy and the working posture.