Ergonomic Risk Assessment in Automotive Welding Lines and Comparison of Method Output

Abstract

There are many studies in the literature on ergonomic risk assessment, but there are limited studies on the Germany Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAUA) method. The aim of this study is to examine the compatibility between Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) and BAUA and the ability of the methods to correctly classify the risk level of risky tasks, and to make ergonomic improvements to reduce the physical strains. The welding processes of the automotive company were examined and ergonomic risk assessment was made by using REBA and BAUA for four tasks with the most strains. The evaluation criteria and results of the methods were compared and improvement suggestions were developed to reduce ergonomic risks. The results of this study approve that the risk output of both methods depends on the exposures considered and their greatness. Both REBA and BAUA are used for work done using the whole body. The biggest difference between the methods is that the time weight evaluation is always used in the BAUA, and the time is not taken into account in the REBA. Since the aim of ergonomics studies is to eliminate the risks of musculoskeletal disorders (MSD), the results that will show where to start the improvement studies should be determined in the most accurate way and no factors should be overlooked. People who will conduct ergonomic risk assessment studies for welding employees were informed about the advantages and disadvantages of both methods and suggestions were given.

Keywords

• Automotive welding tasks
• Ergonomic risk assessment methods
• Improvements
• Musculoskeletal disorders
• Occupational health

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