Ergonomic Assessment of Workers Engaged in Ironing Activity
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Date
2019
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Publisher
CCSHAU
Abstract
In India, ironing workers are the second largest occupational group in the garment industry. The
ironing work led to the highest prevalence of repetitive traumatic and musculoskeletal disorders.
WMSDs are found to be major occupational health problems among the ironing workers while
performing physical work for a prolonged time period. The present study was conducted on the
workers engaged in ironing activity to study their work profile and workplace conditions and to
conduct the ergonomic assessment of workers engaged in ironing activity. The present study was
conducted in two phases. In phase I, work profile and workplace conditions of the workers engaged in
ironing activity was studied among the hundred workers of Haryana State, out of which 60 respondents
belonged to Hisar city and 40 respondents belonged to Bhiwani. Out of 100 male respondents from
Hisar and Bhiwani, 68 per cent of the respondents were indoor ironing workers and 32 per cent were
outdoor ironing workers. Majority of the workers (68%) had a total experience of ironing work of 6-10
years. 84 percent of the respondents worked for 6-9 hours per day and majority i.e. 38 per cent of the
respondents took total rest period of 1.5 hours. Maximum number of respondents (74%) ironed average
150 numbers of clothes per day. Out of 68 indoor ironing workers, 32 ironing workers and cent per
cent of the outdoor ironing workers had the average income of Rs.5000-10,000 per month. In phase II,
ergonomic assessment of workers was conducted on 10 ironing workers, out of which 5 were indoor
workers and 5 were outdoor workers. The experiment was conducted during the month of June. The
posture adopted by the indoor and outdoor ironing workers was standing with hand moving and
forward bending. REBA, RULA and OWAS indicated that investigation, corrective measures and
implementation of change is required. The average RPE score was observed to be 3.3 which indicated
that the exertion of ironing workers was heavy and the average VAD score was found to be 7.8 which
indicated that the ironing workers felt highly discomfortable. Regarding the MSDs felt by the indoor
and outdoor ironing workers, it was severely felt in lower back (WMS 4.3) and lower arms (WMS 4.1).
Musculoskeletal discomfort was moderately felt in shoulder (WMS 3.9), neck and ankle/feet (WMS
3.7), upper arms (WMS 3.6), upper back (WMS 3.1), knee (WMS 3.0) and calf (WMS 2.6), palm
(WMS 2.4) and thigh region (WMS 2.2) of the body had mild musculoskeletal discomfort in the
workers.