Risk Level Assessment to Develop a Hand Disorder in a Bag Sealing Process

Abstract

A cleaning and personal hygiene products company performs its bag sealing process manually with a production standard of 420 boxes in one shift. This situation has caused 33% of workers to present injuries to the wrists, which has led to a constant turnover, as well as significant economic losses. The objective of this work is the decrease in, at least, 5% of this type of injuries from the ergonomic evaluation and the implementation of improvements in the work area. First, the process flow is studied, as well as its cycle time. In the evaluation of the current working method, ergonomic analysis is used. The findings show that the number of repetitions is not adequate, which causes physiotherapeutic problems. Three proposals are raised. Once implemented, a survey of discomfort is applied and the level of discomfort of the worker is contrasted with the new method which validates the improvement.