Ergonomic Analysis of Material Handling for a Residential Building at Rourkela

At the time of working, the trunk state of construction workers was in a non-neutral posture and they were exposed to musculoskeletal disorders. After going through a literature survey and based on a detailed study related to ergonomics, it has been found that a heavy emphasis should be placed on human factors to reduce musculoskeletal disorders. The local contractor of the construction site situated in Rourkela has a working site with different tasks performed in the construction area. In these sites, the worker perform cutting, plastering, buffing, welding, lifting, etc., task daily. During the questionnaire session with the workers on the site, it was found that the major issues were musculoskeletal problem due to material handling. In this research paper, some of the postures of workers are shown. These postures are taken at the time of performing the different task by the worker in the site. The majority of postures taken clearly show the chances of work-related musculoskeletal disorders due to unsuitable working positions. Some of the worker have back injury problem due to lifting, pulling and pushing of materials incorrectly. These symptoms indicate that ergonomic risk factors may exist in the material handling area. Based on the observation on handling equipment and materials at various construction sites of Rourkela, it is appropriate to suggest the utilization of ergonomic assessment tools during these operations. For the identification purpose, ergonomic analysis tools like rapid entire body assessment, rapid upper limb assessment and quick exposure check were used and the results were compared using a different task. © 2020, The Institution of Engineers (India).