Ergonomic improvements in an aircraft component manufacturing company

Abstract

Ergonomics may give indirect contribution in terms of productivity level. The objectives of this study are to identify ergonomics problems that exist in a case study company and to propose improvements on method of the problems identified. The project was conducted at Singapore Aircraft Manufacturing (SAM) Sdn. Bhd. located in Seremban. Hazard Identification, Risk Assessment and Risk Control (HIRARC), Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) and Pareto diagram were used to identify and analyze the problems. It is found that pre-cleaning process was one of the top three ergonomics problems identified in the company. A new design of tool was proposed to support the manual handling of workers while doing the pre-cleaning. REBA analysis was done to determine the score for the existing posture and movement after the improvements. Morphological chart, function analysis and SolidWorks simulation software were implemented to design and analyze the strength of the new design. The objectives of study were achieved in which the score of ergonomics hazard has been reduced from 10 (high risk) to 7 (medium risk).