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Risk of Developing Musculoskeletal Disorders in a Meat Processing Plant

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Advances in Physical Ergonomics and Human Factors (AHFE 2017)

Abstract

The present study aimed to evaluate the risk of developing UL-WMSDs in a pig meat processing plant using the OCRA checklist. The study was conducted in a company with 3000 workers. The average of occupational repetitive actions performed by workers was 64.1 ± 14.3 per minute, representing nine points in the OCRA’s scale. The average score of OCRA’s checklist was 22.2 ± 7.7, which is considered as a moderate risk. The scores for the right upper limb (22.2 ± 7.8 - moderate risk) did not differ (p = 0.192) from the left upper limb (21.6 ± 8.1 - moderate risk). Considering the five risk categories proposed by the OCRA method, six work tasks were considered as high risk (27%) and 16 represented moderate risk (73%). When performing simulations, in 19 of the 22 activities it was possible to reduce the risk of UL-WMSDs to very low levels, by reducing only the working pace (−46.7 ± 14.8%).

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Correspondence to Diogo Cunha dos Reis .

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dos Reis, D.C., Tirloni, A.S., Ramos, E., Moro, A.R.P. (2018). Risk of Developing Musculoskeletal Disorders in a Meat Processing Plant. In: Goonetilleke, R., Karwowski, W. (eds) Advances in Physical Ergonomics and Human Factors. AHFE 2017. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 602. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60825-9_30

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60825-9_30

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