Physiological Evaluation of Manual lifting tasks on Indian Male Workers
Nikhilesh Singh1, Rajendra.M.Belokar2, Ravinder.S.Walia3
1Mr. Nikhilesh Singh, Production Engineering Department, PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh, India.
2Dr. R.M. Belokar, Production Engineering Department, PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh, India.
3Dr. R.S. Walia, Production Engineering Department, PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh, India.
Manuscript received on September 23, 2012. | Revised Manuscript received on October 06, 2012. | Manuscript published on October 30, 2012. | PP: 8-16 | Volume-2 Issue-1, October 2012. | Retrieval Number: A0744102112/2012©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: The present study follows a physiological approach to evaluate physical work capacity (PWC) during manual material handling (MMH) tasks on Indian male workers. This study involves six independent lifting variables such as lifting frequency (2, 5, and 8 lifts/min), lifting load (7, 14, and 21 kg), vertical height (waist, shoulder, and maximum reach), horizontal distance (25, 40, and 55 cm), laboratory condition (21°C, 27°C, and 33°C) and three different rectangular box size{X (35×24×28 cm),Y (44×34×17 cm), and Z (58×38×24 cm)}. The selected two response variables were oxygen intake and heart rate. Taguchi L27 Orthogonal array (OA) was applied to evaluate the effect of these lifting variables and plots of raw and signal- to- noise ratio data was used for computing the significance and their effect on the response variables. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) used to evaluate an optimal result of the variables. After analysis; it was found that all six variables (i.e. lifting frequency, lifting load, vertical height, horizontal distance, laboratory environment and box size) had significant effect on oxygen intake; whereas five variables (i.e. lifting frequency, lifting load, vertical height, horizontal distance and laboratory environment) showed a significant effect except one factor of box size was found insignificant in case of heart rate.
Keywords: Physical work capacity (PWC), Physiological approach, Manual material handling (MMH) tasks, Oxygen intake, Heart rate.