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Selection of Alternate Work Systems to Improve Occupational Health of Indian Construction Workers: A Design of Experiment-Based Approach

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Smart Technologies for Smart Nations

Part of the book series: Managing the Asian Century ((MAAC))

Abstract

From ergonomic point of view, work capability, efficiency, and performance of the workers may substantially decrease as they involve themselves in critical man-machine interactions during construction-related manual material handling tasks. Therefore, to improve the existing ergonomic performance of the work system as a whole with respect to a given MMH task, a number of alternatives are required to be developed to minimize latent risk factors and reduce their impact significantly on the performance of the workers, in relation to biomechanical or physiological parameters. In this chapter, a design of experiment-based comprehensive methodology is proposed and applied for a select critical MMH task with observations from a real construction site in India for identification of alternate work systems that are considered superior from biomechanical point of view through biomechanical assessment for calculating the reaction forces for a number of relevant joints and segments in human body, keeping occupational health of the workers as a major priority. The study may help to develop appropriate guidelines for workers which may reduce the occupational hazards and improve health, safety, and performance of workers under prevailing construction work environment in India.

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Acknowledgment

The authors wish to thank the management of the organization which supported data collection at their construction site.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute of Construction Management and Research, Pune, 411045, India

    Ratri Parida

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, 721302, India

    Sagar Sarkar

  3. Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, 721302, India

    Pradip Kumar Ray

Authors
  1. Ratri Parida
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  2. Sagar Sarkar
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  3. Pradip Kumar Ray
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Correspondence to Ratri Parida .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas, USA

    Purnendu Mandal

  2. Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    John Vong

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Parida, R., Sarkar, S., Ray, P.K. (2016). Selection of Alternate Work Systems to Improve Occupational Health of Indian Construction Workers: A Design of Experiment-Based Approach. In: Mandal, P., Vong, J. (eds) Smart Technologies for Smart Nations. Managing the Asian Century. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-585-3_11

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