Evaluación de riesgos ergonómicos en la fábrica Indalum S.A.

Abstract

The ergonomic risks in people’s workplaces hazard to the health of employees of companies; a study carried out in Colombia in 1998 established that in companies with more than 60 workers, 51% were exposed to inadequate working positions, and 29% of the working population was exposed to over-effort in their jobs (Arenas-Ortiz & CantúGómez, 2013). Sitting or standing for a long time means different health problems may occur; a sedentary lifestyle at work increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, metabolism disturbances, muscle skeletal disorders, and psychological disorders (Elorza et al., 2017). With this background, an investigation was raised. Its objective was to ergonomically evaluate the different jobs of the Indalum Industrial de Aluminio S.A. factory. For this purpose, a descriptive observational research protocol was carried out in all the jobs of this company which is a manufacturer of aluminum kitchen utensils. This investigation was intended to identify the muscle skeletal risk factors and the risk level the workers of this company are exposed to. For this project, the OWAS (OVAKO Working posture Analysis System) method and the Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) method were used. With this study it was observed that 57% of workers have dorsal or lumbar discomfort, 56% have had discomfort in the elbow or forearm, and 63% have had discomfort in the wrist or hand due to the bad postures they adopt while developing their daily workactivities.