Iqbal Ahmed Khan

B.P. Agrawal

Abstract

The present study is focused on posture analysis of the workers working as air filling operators at various petrol filling stations in Delhi NCR. They are continuously working since morning to late night regularly and for whole life. During this period it is observed that they have to occupy a definite posture to perform a specific activity. Their sets of activities are definite and do infinite number of times daily. It depends upon number and type of vehicles i.e. two wheelers/three wheelers/four wheelers etc. arrived for filling air in the tires, at petrol filling stations. The personnel who are working as air filling operators are large in numbers (at least one operator is required for each petrol filling station) if they considered at country level. Apart from these, lot of tyre punctures shops in the cities where similar kind of task is carried out. Also they belong to different age groups and doing repetitive task in nature. The repetition of task can aggravates work related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) such as upper limb extremities, the lower back area, lower limbs, muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments, nerves, bones and the localized blood circulation system etc. in the operators. Keeping this in mind the working postures at the time of air filling of the air filling operator were recorded by Video and still photography, and these images were used for postural analysis. The postural analysis tools Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA), Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) and Quick Exposure Check (QEC) are used to determine the risk assessment involved in the working of air filling operators. The result of RULA and REBA scores 4 and 5 are respectively obtained. The RULA showed, low risk in performing the task and change may be needed in working postures of air filling operators'. Also the REBA revealed that medium risk is in performing the task and further investigation and change is required soon. Further QEC results showed that back score, shoulder/arm score, wrist/hand score are moderate. But neck score and work pace score are very high and high respectively. On the basis of findings of the present work and subsequent discussions in the light of previous researches are carried out and conclusions are drawn

Keywords- RULA, REBA, QEC, postural analysis, WMSD