The ergonomic risk assessment and environmental work white coconut case study local communities Samutsongkram province

Abstract

          This research the objectives of this are to study the process and the working environment, to assess risks of ergonomics, and to study musculoskeletal discomforts of the group of enterprises producing white grated coconut. In this research, samples are randomly chosen, regardless of probabilities. We perform a specific selection and collect data with hygienic measuring instruments, such as sound, light, heat, vibration, and dust meters. Moreover, this research uses the musculoskeletal discomfort assessment and the rapid upper limb assessment or RULA. The result is analyzed by descriptive statistics, such as frequency, percentage, and standard deviation, and inferential statistics, such as One-sample t Tests, Independent-sample t Tests and One-way ANOVA

            The result shows the study of risk assessment results with RULA. It discovers that the process of throwing coconuts into the car, peeling the outer shell of a coconut, cracking coconut outer shell, the RULA index is at 7 suggesting that the task requires an immediate improvement of ergonomics, measurements for assessing light, heat, and vibration values in the operation are at a level in accordance with the standards of legal intensity. From the sound assessment, it is found that at point 1 or peeling white grated coconut, point 2 or coconut shelling, point 3 or coconut shelling work, and point 4 or peeling white grated coconut work have the exceeded benchmark with mean TWA₈ of 85.4 dB(A), 85.53 dB(A), 96.77 dB(A) and 95.97 dB(A), respectively. From dust assessment, it shows that the point with the highest content of 2.5-micron dust is point 2 or loading