Journal of Recent Research in Engineering and Technology, 4(5), May 2017, PP.01-06 ISSN (Online): 2349 2252, ISSN (Print):2349 2260 Bonfay Publications, 2017 Improvement of Ergonomic Factors in a Textile Industry: A Case Study K. Balasundaram1, Ashenafi Adugna1, A. Ashok Kumar2, M. S. Senthil Kumar1 1Department of Industrial Engineering, Institute of Technology, Dire Dawa University, Dire Dawa, Ethiopia 2Department of Textile Engineering, Institute of Technology, Dire Dawa University, Dire Dawa, Ethiopia Received 23 April 2017; Accepted 04 May 2017 ABSTRACT: In industry, ergonomics is an important aspect. The ergonomic factors play an important role in the effective running of a company, so these factors are to be considered seriously. In industry, the various aspects of ergonomic are to be considered that relates with the employees; while working. The ergonomic problems will affect the workers in a negative way; this will lead to a decrease in productivity, non-achievement of the target value, etc. A case study conducted on a textile industry, located in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia. The main aim of this study is to find out the ergonomic problems that affect employees in a weaving unit and also survey is conducted to know the response of the employees about the working conditions provided by the company. According to this study, the response of the employees are obtained and ergonomic factor that has the highest responses are selected and suggestions are given to improve the factors. Keywords: Ergonomics, Ergonomic Factors, Production Department, Layout. 1. INTRODUCTION: The word ergonomics is derived from two Greek words: ergos mean work and nomos mean law. During the Second World War period, by a group of British scientists, this word was introduced to address the effective utilization of complex military equipment. In the USA, this is identified as human engineering, however, in European countries, this is termed as Ergonomics. It is a multidisciplinary area of study and can be defined simply as the study of work. In ergonomics, the job is mainly focused on how best it is fit to the worker, rather than forcing his body to fit the job. Adapting tasks, workstations, tools, and equipment to fit the worker can help to reduce physical stress on a worker's body. Further, it reduces many potentially serious, disabling work-related musculoskeletal disorders. Ergonomics draws on a number of scientific disciplines which includes physiology, biomechanics, psychology, anthropometry, industrial hygiene, and kinesiology. Organizations are rapidly changing to accommodate expanding markets, increasing diverse workforce, and increasing public consciousness. Subsequently, ergonomics practices are getting increasing attention. Ergonomics practices are essential for the persons who spends a considerable amount of time at a work or an office or a worksite and should get benefit from a well- 24
Journal of Recent Research in Engineering and Technology K. Balasundaram et.al designed worker employee ergonomics practices. In a normal scenario, an employee spends a minimum of about 200 hours a month at work and he undergoes physiological injury, distractions and the pressures of the job. So that, nowadays across the globe most of the companies are practicing the employee ergonomics practices to improve the working conditions and reducing the injuries for the worker. Moreover, this practice will also give benefit the organization to a larger extent in bringing about organizational effectiveness. In the current research work, a case study is conducted on employee ergonomics practices in the production department (Weaving Unit) of Dire Dawa textile factory, Ethiopia. During the study, various ergonomic factors which affect the workers during working are considered. A questionnaire is designed based on the satisfaction of the employees while working on ergonomic factors and reliability checking is done; after that, a survey of 100 employees is conducted. About the Company: Dire Dawa textile factory was established in the year 1939 and it has approximately 216 shuttles looms. They are producing both plain and twill fabrics. In Ethiopia, textile and clothing industry is experiencing major growth, supported by cheap, skilled and highly motivated workforce. Ethiopia has enormous export potential due to the wide availability of raw cotton and other natural fibers. Further, Ethiopia is easy to access to the domestic, regional and international market. These phenomena improve the economic growth of the 25 country in textile sectors over the past years. II. LITERATURE REVIEW The major deal for human factors and ergonomics is fitting the job to the worker rather than forcing. Friendly workplace conditions support the perception of employees. This study is to determine the essential factors of cognitive ergonomics and employee well-being [1]. The employees perceived work in the oil rig in the desert environment as work in extreme environmental conditions and with a diverse schedule. Major ergonomic issues identified were the adverse environment, long shifts, a diverse schedule, and hard physical work Workers were extremely tired at the end of the workday and they considered work to exceed their capacity [2]. From the experiment results, it is observed that the ergonomic changes can yield an improvement in job accuracy by over 25% in the errors committed which is quite high, but this was not detected in the control group. The impact of surroundings on performance is detected for the depressed accuracy, whereas, certain researchers so far believed that only the rate of work may suffer not only does the human body undergo wear and tear because of improper operating conditions, it additionally affects the performance badly [3]. The sustainable ergonomic program is an extension of ergonomics which improves corporate social responsibility. The sustainable ergonomic program can create good working conditions where employees will be able to deliver the required work performance in a long-term standard. The
K. Balasundaram et.al Journal of Recent Research in Engineering and Technology successful sustainable ergonomic program is based on the improved efficiency of human work, and reduced occurrence of health problems and diseases [4]. Proper ergonomic design is important to avoid repetitive strain injuries and other musculoskeletal disorders, sometimes it will lead to long-term disability. Ergonomics improvements improve quality and operators productivity [5-6]. Generally, ergonomics estimations are performed by ergonomists, but workplace layouts are planned by planning engineers, and the results are frequently unsatisfactory and do not increase the productivity [7-8]. So a study of ergonomic factors or facilities affecting workers in an industry is important or else, it will affect the overall performance of the company. III. METHODOLOGY In this study production department (weaving unit) is chosen for the case study. The careful study of the production department is conducted and various data are regarding the activities in production department are collected. From this data, various ergonomic factors are designated and a questionnaire form is designed. A pilot study of 100 employees is conducted with this questionnaire form. From this data reliability checking of the questionnaire is conducted and necessary modifications are done to questionnaire to improve reliability. After preparing a final questionnaire main survey of 100 employees is conducted, and the responses of the employees are obtained. From this, the ergonomic factors that have higher responses are selected and suggestions are given to enhance the factors. III. ERGONOMIC FACTORS AFFECTING WORKERS IN WEAVING UNIT The layout of the production department is shown in Figure 1, it consists of 382 power looms and 22 sulzer looms, 36 pirn winding machine, 1 sizing machine, 1 warping machine. The weaving department consists of 100 employees. The detailed study of the weaving department is conducted by considering various ergonomic factors like working time, the working environment, machines, safety and wage system. A cause and effect diagram can be constructed as shown in Figure 2 to analyze the factors that cause the ergonomic problems. The factors that contribute to the ergonomic problem are discussed below. Figure 1: Layout of weaving department 26
Journal of Recent Research in Engineering and Technology K. Balasundaram et.al A. Working Environment The factors of Working Environment are shown below: 1. Dust: The working area of the weaving department is a dusty environment. The dust will create various problems that affect the Employees both mentally and physically affected by this dusty environment working for long periods. These dust problems will cause the Bronchitis and sneezing this will affect the work. 2. Sound: In the production department there are 382 machines combined together there is a sound environment. The sound exposure creates continuous it will affect the workers in a negative way it will cause loss of attitude, headache, presence of mind and hearing loss will occur. 3. Temperature: The important factors in the weaving department is temperature should be well controlled otherwise this will affect the attitude and working performance of the worker. In the production department the roof is made of asbestos sheets and controlling equipment s are not working this will absorb more heat and this will cause to obtain more heat in the weaving department. Figure 2: Cause and Effect Diagram for Ergonomic Problems B. Operating Time The operating time includes two factors: shift and wage system. 1. Shift: The operating time is from 8 am to 8 pm. The employees in the weaving department have to work for 12 hours. The workers are working for 12 hours continuous it will cause laziness and poor concentration. If the working time is too long it will create the mental stress for the worker and this result in poor quality products. 2. Wage System: The production department workers are motivated for a long shift due to the wage system adopted. The working time is 12 hour shift this will cause major problems to the worker because they have a stand and work this will cause ligament problems, back pain. These problems affect the workers badly and cause lack of concentration on the work. C. Machines The weaving department consists of 382 power looms and 22 sulzer looms, 36 pirn 27
K. Balasundaram et.al Journal of Recent Research in Engineering and Technology winding machine, 1 Sizing Machine, 1 Warping Machine. In the production department, the preventive maintenance is adopted. The sizing machine when the power is transmitted by a motor through a chain drive. During the power transmissions, the warping beam enters into the sizing machine the chain derive lose its tension so that the cotton yarn itself is loading yarn from the warping beam. These will cause the weakening of the cotton yarn also it cause a delay while working. D. Industrial Safety Industrial safety plays an important factor to running a company effectively. The company ensures about sufficient safety measures and important of the safety precautions should provide to make the workers while in working. The awareness of using the safety measures is not properly done by the company. IV. SURVEY The final questionnaire is prepared once reliability checking is employed for the survey. A survey of 100 employees is conducted by using the questionnaire, the scores for every question are calculated and then it is revealed in the Table I. Figure 3 shown the bar chart by considering the results obtained from the survey. The bar chart depicted that ergonomic factors are significantly affected the employee satisfaction. So necessary steps should be taken to improve these factors and thereby increasing the worker's efficiency and quality. TABLE I SCORES OBTAINED FROM THE SURVEY OF 100 EMPLOYEES Parameters Response of the Employees (%) Company 73 Dust 71 Temperature 82 Sound 61 Work Time 67 Wage 74 Stress 74 Communication 81 Machines 90 Overall Satisfaction 76 Figure 3. Ergonomic Factors 28
Journal of Recent Research in Engineering and Technology K. Balasundaram et.al V. SUGGESTIONSFOR IMPROVING ERGONOMIC FACTORS From the survey conducted among employees in the production department, it is understood that the ergonomic factors have a high connection with the employee satisfaction. The subsequent steps may be taken to enhance these factors. A. Working environment The working environment deals with the factors like dust, sound, and temperature. From the survey, factors contribute 80% in dust, 85% in temperature and 60 % in sound. Dust can be controlled by providing disposable type safety masks. Sound can be reduced by using less noisy machines and proper safety measures for noise. The asbestos roof causes a hightemperature rise within the production department together with the heat emission from the machines causes continuous yarn breakage in hot days. This may produce stress in the employees this can have an effect on the work, thus use correct temperature controlling devices. B. Operating Time From the response of the workers, it is found that wage system factor contributes 74% and shift factor contributes 67%. The 12-hour shift can permit earning additional salary due to the motivational part of the wage system. However, the long hour shift will cause back pain and other health issues, so the shift timings can be reduced from 12 hours to 10 hours. 29 C. Machines The operating condition of machines conjointly incorporates a nice result on the performance of the employee. From the survey conducted, it is observed that in the ergonomic factor the machine contributes 90% response. The sizing machine incorporates a major problem due to the lack of tension in regular intervals of time which will be the basis for the weakening of the cotton yarn. Therefore the machine ought to get replaced. High-quality raw materials must be used for the production process. Further, the preventive maintenance must be done properly. D. Yarn Breakage and Industrial Safety During the process the yarn breakage cannot be avoided, however, it is controlled to an exact limit, by using reliable machines and providing enough temperature controlling devices. The sprinkler is not in good operating condition, therefore replace or repair the sprinkler this can scale back the yarn breakage to an extent. The company should strictly follow the rules relating to the safety that is the mandatory use of the safety measures. VI. CONCLUSION In the production department (weaving unit) of a leading textile industry at Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, a case study was conducted on ergonomics factors. During the study, various ergonomic factors are considered which affect the workers while working. Further, the survey also considered several ergonomic factors on the satisfaction of the employees while
K. Balasundaram et.al Journal of Recent Research in Engineering and Technology working. A questionnaire is designed and reliability checking is done; after that, a survey of 100 employees is conducted. According to this survey, the response of the employees are obtained and ergonomic factor that has the highest responses are selected and suggestions are given to the organisation to improve. A satisfied employee will work hard for the company and strictly maximum the profit of the organisation. REFERENCES: [1] Osha, Ergonomics: The Study of Work U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Revised, 2000, pp. 3125. [2] Ashraf A. Shikdar. Identification of ergonomic Issues that affect Workers in Oilrigs in Desert Environments. Int. J. Occup. Saf. Ergon. 2004. UES IN OILRIGS 169. Sultan Qaboos University. Sultanate of Oman [3] Alok Saklani and Shweta Jha, Impact of Ergonomic Changes on Office Employee Productivity, 2011, vol. 2. [4] HaPetra Markova. Rastislav Beno and Karol tiar. Sustainable ergonomic program -Basic condition for implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility, 2012. [5] Ayesha Anjumi, Ashfaq Ahmad Mann and M. Aqeel Anjum Health Concerns among Workers in Weaving Industry: A Case Study of Tehsil Faisalabad, Pakistan. J. Agri. Soc. Sci., vol. 5, pp. 1813 2235, 2009 [6] D. Battini, M. Faccio, A. Person, and F. Sgarboss, New methodological framework to improve productivity and ergonomics in assembly system design, Int. J. Ind. Ergonom., vol. 41, pp. 30-42, 2011. 30