Ergonomic Indicators and Physical Workload Risks in Food Production and Possibilities for Risk Prevention

The food industry is the most important and largest manufacturing industry in Latvia, producing almost a third of all manufacturing output. Employees in a food production enterprises are exposed to a variety of ergonomic risks: monotonous work movements that can be repeated up to 1000 times a day, overloads that exceeds 30 kg in lifting and moving operations, forced working postures, fast work pace. The aim of the study was to identify ergonomic indicators related to physical load for packers in one medium-sized company producing potato starch in Latvia. When summarizing the results of the survey on burden-lifting rates, it should be noted that, in a shift, 30% of packers lift the burden from 200 to 500 times, 26% from 40 to 200 times, while 24% note that smaller products are lifted between 500 and 1000 times. Nearly all those surveyed indicated that, during work, body posture was deeply bent and the body twisted. Analysis of physical load of male packers, applying the KIM-LHC method, shows that, when a mass weighing 16 kg and 25 kg is lifted, packers are exposed to risk levels 3 and 4 respectively. According to KIM-MHO assessment, in works where frequent hand movements and monotonous working operations are observed, the results presented a risk level 3. This could be explained by a high intensity of work. The results obtained by the QEC method show that the shoulder girdle, arms, hands, and the neck of packers who lift and mix a product with a mass of 25 kg, are at very high risk at work. The essential ergonomic indicators during physical load and repeated monotonous work operations are obtained analyzing the physical load of employees with the KIM methods and the QEC method in order to determine the load of individual body parts during work.