Development of a job rotation model for a noise hazard reduction

Abstract

Job rotation is a significant approach of job design used in manufacturing, assembly or any service providing system, which requires the workers to move between different tasks, at fixed or irregular periods of time. Nowadays, an effective job rotation is increasingly employed in organizations because it helps to reduce and balance the hazard exposure among the workers. An effective job rotation requires optimum rotation parameter setting to ensure the final results will give benefits, for both occupational safety and health, and operational cost. Most of the job rotation studies by previous researchers have been performed for heavy engineering industry such as automotive assembly, forestry and construction site, but a lack of study is observed for the food and beverage manufacturing industries. In this thesis, a job rotation model of a food and beverage manufacturing company has been developed by using Mathematical Programming, and in particular, Integer Linear Programming to eliminate repetitive tasks (with high exposure of noise hazard) for each of the workers, while maintaining a constant level of production. This study was performed among 9 workers, and the proposed model was simulated under few scenarios based on machine availability and worker’s competency requirement. The proposed model was then transformed into MATLAB programming framework and the optimum solutions were then analysed to verify their effectiveness. Final results are given illustrating the validity and practicality of the proposed model for different operational scenarios.