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Fulltext Microstructure analysis, physical and thermal properties of al2o3-al2tio5 functionally graded ceramics for the application of car brake rot

Oo, Z., Sujan, D., Rong Kimberly, F. P

Pertanika Journal of Science & Technology, 2015;23(1):153-161.
MyJurnal

Aluminium titanate (AT) (Al2TiO5) is a promising engineering material because of its low thermal expansion coefficient, excellent thermal shock resistance, good refractoriness and non-wetting with most metals. Functionally graded material (FGM) is generally a particulate composite with continuously varying volume fractions. FGMs are alternative materials for dental implants, building materials and ballistic protection. It has been of great interest to future engines, internal combustion engines, metal cutting and other high temperature engineering application. There has been a demand for an adequate disc brake that requires less maintenance in the automotive manufacturing industry. FGM, the next evolution of layered structure, consists of graded compositions that are dispersed across the ceramic which produces a gradual improvement in the properties across the ceramic at a steady pace.

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry
Heavy metals found in the breathing zone, toenails and lung function of welders working in an air-conditioned welding workplace

Hariri A, Mohamad Noor N, Paiman NA, Ahmad Zaidi AM, Zainal Bakri SF

Int J Occup Saf Ergon, 2018 Dec;24(4):646-651.
PMID: 28849717 DOI: 10.1080/10803548.2017.1368950

Welding operations are rarely conducted in an air-conditioned room. However, a company would set its welding operations in an air-conditioned room to maintain the humidity level needed to reduce hydrogen cracks in the specimen being welded. This study intended to assess the exposure to metal elements in the welders' breathing zone and toenail samples. Heavy metal concentration was analysed using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The lung function test was also conducted and analysed using statistical approaches. Chromium and manganese concentrations in the breathing zone exceeded the permissible exposure limit stipulated by Malaysian regulations. A similar trend was obtained in the concentration of heavy metals in the breathing zone air sampling and in the welders' toenails. Although there was no statistically significant decrease in the lung function of welders, it is suggested that exposure control through engineering and administrative approaches should be considered for workplace safety and health improvement.

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry
Fulltext Female shrouded connector production process variability monitoring: a robust approach

Salleh, R.M., Djauhari, M.A.

ASM Science Journal, 2012;6(1):1-13.
MyJurnal

A monitoring procedure was introduced for process variability in a multivariate setting based on individual observations which was a combination of (i) robust high breakdown point approach in the set-up stage to determine the reference sample and (ii) the use of Wilks chart in the mass production stage. This setting is what the Malaysian manufacturing industry is currently lacking in, especially when a robust approach must be used. The advantage of this procedure was revealed by using the case of a female shrouded connector production process in a Malaysian industry. Moreover, this procedure could also be used in any process quality monitoring and for any industry. A recommendation for quality practitioners was also addressed.

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry
Fulltext Factors Affecting the Manufacturing Industry Transformation and Upgrading: A Case Study of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

Yang F, Sun Y, Zhang Y, Wang T

Int J Environ Res Public Health, 2021 07 04;18(13).
PMID: 34281094 DOI: 10.3390/ijerph18137157

This study aims to analyze the development trend of the manufacturing industry transformation and upgrading in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (2008-2018). On the basis of synergetics, the order parameter method of factor analysis is used to study these factors. The results show that: (1) There are five slow variable factors, such as intelligent manufacturing industry, technological innovation, scale agglomeration, market demand, and fixed asset investment, which are important power sources of the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry in Greater Bay Area. The development of these factors is relatively mature, and they cooperate with each other. (2) Similar to a fast variable of manufacturing development ecology, green development is an important coordinating factor in removing bottlenecks. Finally, suggestions for the development of the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry are put forward.

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry*
Evaluation of safety climate differences among employees' demographic variables: a cross-sectional study in two different-sized manufacturing industries in Malaysia

Saedi AM, Majid AA, Isa Z

Int J Occup Saf Ergon, 2021 Sep;27(3):714-727.
PMID: 31131712 DOI: 10.1080/10803548.2019.1623454

Introduction. Demographic information is one of the key parameters that organizations utilize to modify their practices in order to respond to the existing risk within work environments. The present article aims to assess the level of safety climate factors as well as to evaluate the influence of personal factors on safety climate in two different-sized industries. Methods. A total of 216 employees in two large and three small and medium-sized chemical manufacturing industries responded to a questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to measure the safety climate level; a two-independent-sample Mann-Whitney U test and a Kruskal-Wallis test were run to compare the difference in safety climate scores among different demographic variables. Results. The lower level of safety climate in small and medium-sized industries revealed lower understanding and performance of management and non-management with regard to safety climate compared to the large industries. Additionally, significant mean differences on some safety climate factors among demographic variables were detected in both sizes of industries, emphasizing the important role of the employees' demographic variables on the plants' safety climate. Conclusion. Improving organization-level and group-level safety climates is recommended to improve employees' level of safety climate and control their personal factors.

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry*
Fulltext Efficiency benchmarking of the iron and steel industry via the benchmark curve: a review

Fazeli, A., Bakhtvar, F., Jahanshaloo, L., Nor Azwadi, C. S.

Journal of Advanced Review on Scientific Research, 2014;2(2):19-40.
MyJurnal

Evidence on rising global temperature, melting of ice caps, and withdrawal of glaciers
brings attentions to the enhancement of energy efficiency in energy intensive industries. Having a
realistic comparison between one plant and the best practice technology (BPT) in operation in the field
helps significantly to distinguish and diagnose the potentials where measures towards energy efficiency
improvement would be applicable. In this regard, for manufacturing industries, one of the most widely
used energy benchmarking tools is the Energy Benchmark Curve. An energy benchmark curve plots the
efficiency of plants as a function of the total production volume from all similar plants or as a function
of the total number of plants that operate at that level of efficiency or worse. This paper reviews the
methodology through which the benchmark curve is obtained for a specific industry followed by a
comparison of energy intensity for the iron and steel industry among China and the US. According to
the international energy benchmark curve for the iron and steel industry, the savings potentials per ton
of crude steel for the US. and China have been respectively 4.1 and 7.1 gigajoule comparing with the
BPT in the field. Finally, an overview over certain measures to enhance efficiency of such plants is
presented.

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry
Effects of two ergonomic improvements in brazing coils of air-handler units

Loo HS, Yeow PH

Appl Ergon, 2015 Nov;51:383-91.
PMID: 26154237 DOI: 10.1016/j.apergo.2015.06.007

The research aims to address the physically loading task and quality and productivity problems in the brazing of coils of air-handler units. Eight operators participated in two intervention studies conducted in a factory in Malaysia to compare the status quo brazing with (1) the use of a new twin-brazing torch that replaced the single-brazing gun and (2) brazing in a sitting position. The outcome measures are related to quality, productivity, monetary costs, body postures and symptoms. After baseline, Interventions I and II were applied for 3 months respectively. The results show a 58.9% quality improvement, 140% productivity increase and 113 times ROI. There was also a reduction in poor work postures e.g. in the raising of the arms and shoulders; bending, twisting and extending of the neck; and bending of left and right wrists, and the back. This research can be replicated in other factories that share similar processes.

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry/economics; Manufacturing Industry/methods*; Manufacturing Industry/standards
Fulltext Effects of night shift work towards health and safety of production workers. [Kesan bekerja shif malam terhadap kesihatan dan keselamatan di kalangan pekerja pengeluaran]

Deros, B.M., Khamis, N.K., Ismail, A.R., Ludin, A.

Malaysian Journal of Community Health, 2009;15(1):64-75.
MyJurnal

Introduction : Shift work is practised in manufacturing industry to increase production capacity up to three times compared to the normal daily eight hours working system and able to optimize the utilization of machine and equipment. However, shift work has negatif effects on human social interaction, health and safety.
Methodology : The study was conducted to evaluate production workers’ perception on the effects of working at night shift. The respondents of the study were production workers in Company X in Kuala Lumpur. The Data was collected using self administered questionnaires. The study objectives was to study the work schedule design, to find out their perceptions on the effects of night shift and to study on personal factors, employees’ level of acceptance on the work schedule design and personal factors that cause safety and health disruption.
Result : A total of 200 production workers participated in the study. The result of the study shows 61% of production workers took sick leave and 43.5% were absent between 1 and 2 times a month. In terms of health and safety disruption, 77% of respondents agreed that they faced lack of focus with family and friends, 75.5% of them did not have enough sleep and 76.5% felt sleepy during working time. Regarding the work schedule and workstation design, 81.5% said they felt uncomfortable because they were required to stand during working and 77% felt that the resting period provided by the factory was too short and inadequate. More than 70% of the respondents proposed the rest period should be extended from the current 40 minutes to one hour. More than 80% of respondents agreed they would feel comfortable if standing at work is changed to sitting work system.
Conclusion : To minimize the unwanted effect of night shift among the production.

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry
Effectiveness of a brief physician counselling session on improving smoking behaviour in the workplace

Han YW, Mohammad M, Liew SM

Asian Pac J Cancer Prev, 2014;15(17):7287-90.
PMID: 25227830

BACKGROUND: Brief physician counselling has been shown to be effective in improving smokers' behaviour. If the counselling sessions can be given at the workplace, this would benefit a larger number of smokers. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of a ten-minute physician counseling session at the workplace in improving smoking behaviour.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: This prospective randomised control trial was conducted on smokers in a factory. A total of 163 participants were recruited and randomised into control and intervention groups using a table of random numbers. The intervention group received a ten-minute brief physician counselling session to quit smoking. Stages of smoking behaviour were measured in both groups using a translated and validated questionnaire at baseline, one month and three months post intervention.
RESULTS: There was a significant improvement in smoking behaviour at one-month post intervention (p=0.024, intention to treat analysis; OR=2.525; CI=1.109-5.747). This was not significant at three-month post intervention (p=0.946, intention to treat analysis; OR=1.026; 95% CI=0.486-2.168).
CONCLUSIONS: A session of brief physician counselling was effective in improving smokers' behaviour at workplace, but the effect was not sustained.

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry*
Fulltext Effect of nickel and platinum addition on the thixotopic behaviour of lead-free solder paste

Durairaj, R., Leong, K.C., Chia Wea, L., Wong, M.C.

ASM Science Journal, 2011;5(2):109-114.
MyJurnal

Lead-free solder paste printing processes account for the majority of assembly defects in the electronic manufacturing industry. In the stencil printing process, the solder paste must be able to withstand low and high shear rates which result in continuous structural breakdown and build-up. This study investigated the effect of the addition of nickel and platinum powders to the thixotropic behaviour of lead-free Sn/Ag/Cu solder pastes using the structural kinetic model. A hysteresis loop test and constant shear test were utilized to investigate the thixotropic behaviour of the pastes using parallel plate rheometry at 25ºC. In this study, the shear rates were increased from 0.01 s–1 to 10 s–1 and the second curve was a result of decreasing the shear rate from 10 s–1 to 0.01 s–1. For the constant shear test, the samples were subjected to five different shear rates of 0.01s–1, 0.1s–1, 1s–1, 10s–1 and 100s–1. The constant shear rate test was designed to study the structural breakdown and build-up of the paste materials. From this investigation, the hysteresis loop test was shown to be an effective test method to differentiate the extent of structural recovery in the solder pastes. All the pastes showed a high degree of shear thinning behaviour with time. This might be due to the agglomeration of particles in the flux that prohibited paste flow under low shear rate. The action of high shear rate would break the agglomerates into smaller pieces which facilitated the flow of pastes, thus viscosity was reduced at high shear rate.

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry
Economic and environmental sustainability for anaerobic biological treatment of wastewater from paper and cardboard manufacturing industry

Tawfik A, Bakr MH, Nasr M, Haider J, Mesfer MKA, Lim H, et al.

Chemosphere, 2022 Feb;289:133166.
PMID: 34875288 DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.133166

The sustainable application of an up-flow anaerobic baffled reactor (UABR) to treat real paper and cardboard industrial effluent (PCIE) containing bronopol (2-bromo-2-nitropropan-1, 3-diol) was investigated. At a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 11.7 h and a bronopol concentration of 7.0 mg L-1, the removal efficiencies of total chemical oxygen demand (CODtotal), CODsoluble, CODparticulate, total suspended solids (TSS), volatile suspended solids (VSS), carbohydrates, and proteins were 55.3 ± 5.2%, 26.8 ± 2.3%, 94.4 ± 4.6%, 89.4 ± 2.6%, 84.5 ± 3.2%, 72.1 ± 1.8%, and 22.4 ± 1.8%, respectively. The conversion of complex organics (e.g., carbohydrates and proteins) into bio-methane (CH4) was assisted via enzyme activities of, in U (100 mL)-1, α-amylase (224-270), α-xylanase (171-188), carboxymethyl cellulase (CM-cellulase) (146-187), polygalacturonase (56-126), and protease (67,000-75300). The acidogenic condition was dominant at a short HRT of 2.9 h, where methane yield dropped by 32.5%. Under this condition, the growth of methanogenic bacteria could be inhibited by volatile fatty acids (VFA) accumulation. The analysis of Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectra detected peaks relevant to methylene and nitro groups in the sludge samples, suggesting that entrapment/adsorption by the sludge bed could be a major mechanism for removing bronopol. The economic feasibility of UABR, as proposed to receive 100 m3 d-1 of PCIE, showed a payback period (profits from environmental benefits, biogas recovery, and carbon credit) of 7.6 yr. The study outcomes showed a high connection to the environmental-, economic-, and social-related sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry
Fulltext Determinants of exports performance: Evidence from Indonesian low-, medium-, and high-technology manufacturing industries

Handoyo RD, Ibrahim KH, Rahmawati Y, Faadhillah F, Ogawa K, Kusumawardani D, et al.

PLoS One, 2024;19(1):e0296431.
PMID: 38165859 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0296431

This study explores the determinants of the export performance of Indonesia's low-, medium-, and high-technology manufacturing industries by focusing on the role of raw-material imports and technical efficiency. Micro firm-level data from 2010-2015 were utilized for the analysis in this study. The stochastic frontier analysis was employed to measure technical inefficiency and to determine its effect on export performance. Our findings indicate that in all categories of industry technical efficiency, raw materials imports, foreign direct investment (FDI), location, firm size, labour productivity, and concentration of industries were significant determinants of export performance. While high efficiency increases exports in low- and medium-technology firms, exports decrease in firms with high efficiency accompanied by high imports, FDI, size, and labour productivity. Furthermore, in high-technology industries, efficiency reduces exports and again increases them when mediated by a concentration of industries and location. The empirical strategy also supports the positive effect of imports on export performance in both industries, which also aligns with decreased exports in firms with high imports accompanied by high FDI, efficiency, labour productivity, the concentration of industries, and size. To this end, the study has implications for low-, medium-, and high-technology manufacturing that are mainly concerned with increasing exports.

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry*
Fulltext Contribution of Arab countries to pharmaceutical wastewater literature: a bibliometric and comparative analysis of research output

Zyoud SH, Zyoud SH, Al-Jabi SW, Sweileh WM, Awang R

Ann Occup Environ Med, 2016;28:28.
PMID: 27382475 DOI: 10.1186/s40557-016-0117-0

BACKGROUND: Recently, the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry has been growing rapidly in many countries in the world, including in Arab countries. Pharmaceuticals reach aquatic environments and are prevalent at small concentrations in wastewater from the drug manufacturing industry and hospitals. Such presence also occurs in domestic wastewater and results from the disposal of unused and expired medicines. Therefore, the objective of this study was to analyze and compare the quantity and quality of publications made by researchers in Arab countries on pharmaceutical wastewater.
METHODS: To retrieve documents related to pharmaceutical wastewater, we used the Scopus database on November 21, 2015. All documents with terms related to pharmaceutical wastewater in the title or abstract were analysed. Results obtained from Arab countries were compared with those obtained from Turkey, Iran and Israel.
RESULTS: Globally, a total of 6360 publications were retrieved while those from Arab countries, Iran, Turkey and Israel, were 179, 113, 96 and 54 publications respectively. The highest share of publications belonged to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) with a total of 47 (26.2 %) publications, followed by Egypt (38; 21.2 %), Tunisia (17; 9.5 %) and Morocco (16; 8.9 %). The total number of citations was 1635, with a mean of 9.13 and a median (inter quartile range) of 3 (1.0-10.0). The study identified 87 (48.6 %) documents with 32 countries of international collaboration with Arab countries. It was noted that Arab researchers collaborated mainly with authors in Western Europe (54; 30.2 %), followed by authors from the Asiatic region (29; 16.2 %) and Northern America (15; 8.4 %). The most productive institution was King Saud University, KSA (13; 7.3 %), followed by the National Research Centre, Egypt (10; 7.3 %).
CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that KSA has the largest share of productivity on pharmaceutical wastewater research. Bibliometric analysis demonstrated that research productivity, mainly from Arab countries in pharmaceutical wastewater research, was relatively lagging behind. More research effort is required for Arab countries to catch up with those of non-Arab Middle Easter countries on pharmaceutical wastewater research.

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry
Fulltext Colour vision of workers in the plastics industry

Kaur S, Mursyid A, Ariffin AE

Journal of Occupational Safety and Health, 2004;1(1):25-30.
MyJurnal

A study was undertaken to determine the effect of polyethylene and polystyrene used in the manufacture of plastic items on colour perception. Colour vision was assessed using the Ishihara plates, panel 015 test and the Farnsworth Munsell 100-Hue test. Two factories were chosen at random. One factory (referred here as factory A) used virgin resin in pellet form (polyethylene) in the manufacturing of plastic containers to store consumer edible oil. The other factory (referred as factory B) used polystyrene to make plastic bags. A total of 39 healthy employees from factory A (mean age 26.4 :t 8.2 years) and 40 healthy employees from factory B (mean age 26.8 :t 9.6 years) were recruited in this study. A control group of 27 normal healthy subjects (mean age 27.4 :t 4.3 years) who were employees of UKM with no occupational involvement with petroleum derivatives were also recruited in this study and they performed the same colour vision tests. All subjects passed the Ishihara plates test showing that none of the subjects (employees of factory A and B, and control subjects) had a congenital red-green defect. All control subjects passed all of the colour vision tests whilst some employees of factories A and B failed the 015 and FM100 Hue tests. For employees from factory A results from the 015 test showed that 7 (17.9%) had a tritan (blue-yellow) type of defect and 1 (2.6%) had a complex type of defect. The FM 100 Hue results of factory A employees showed that 51.3% (n=20) had a complex type of defect. Total error scores (TES) calculated from the FM 100 Hue test revealed that employees from factory A had a statistically significant higher mean TES of 65.13:!: 48.31 compared to that of control subjects with a mean TES of 31.26:!: 14.93. For employees in factory B, 10 employees (25.0%) had a tritan (blue-yellow) type of defect and 2 (5.0%) had a complex type of defect. Results of the FM 100 Hue test showed that 4 employees (1.0%) had a tritan type of defect whereas 22 (55.0%) had a complex type of defect. Mean total error scores (TES) calculated from the FM 100 Hue test revealed that employees from factory B had a statistically significant higher mean TES of 71.54 :t 54.63 compared with that of control subjects with a mean TES of 31.26 :t. 14.93

The above results show that employees of the plastic factories studies are associated with a higher risk of acquiring colour vision defects as compared to normal subjects who are not engaged in the plastic manufacturing industry. This may have an implication towards the future retinal health of employees in petrod1emical-based industries.

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry
Fulltext Classification of botnet attacks in IoT smart factory using honeypot combined with machine learning

Lee S, Abdullah A, Jhanjhi N, Kok S

PeerJ Comput Sci, 2021;7:e350.
PMID: 33817000 DOI: 10.7717/peerj-cs.350

The Industrial Revolution 4.0 began with the breakthrough technological advances in 5G, and artificial intelligence has innovatively transformed the manufacturing industry from digitalization and automation to the new era of smart factories. A smart factory can do not only more than just produce products in a digital and automatic system, but also is able to optimize the production on its own by integrating production with process management, service distribution, and customized product requirement. A big challenge to the smart factory is to ensure that its network security can counteract with any cyber attacks such as botnet and Distributed Denial of Service, They are recognized to cause serious interruption in production, and consequently economic losses for company producers. Among many security solutions, botnet detection using honeypot has shown to be effective in some investigation studies. It is a method of detecting botnet attackers by intentionally creating a resource within the network with the purpose of closely monitoring and acquiring botnet attacking behaviors. For the first time, a proposed model of botnet detection was experimented by combing honeypot with machine learning to classify botnet attacks. A mimicking smart factory environment was created on IoT device hardware configuration. Experimental results showed that the model performance gave a high accuracy of above 96%, with very fast time taken of just 0.1 ms and false positive rate at 0.24127 using random forest algorithm with Weka machine learning program. Hence, the honeypot combined machine learning model in this study was proved to be highly feasible to apply in the security network of smart factory to detect botnet attacks.

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry
Fulltext An investigation of knowledge, attitude and practice of occupational safety and health (OSH) on safety climate at workplace in manufacturing industry

Nuruzzakiyah Mohd Ishanuddin, Ezrin Hani Sukadarin, Hanida Abdul Aziz, Junaidah Zakaria

Journal of Occupational Safety and Health, 2019;16(2):21-29.
MyJurnal

To investigate the safety climate and knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) on occupational safety and health (OSH)in the manufacturing industry, also to determine the association between safety climate factors and KAP of safety among manufacturing worker. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 59 respondents from two manufacturing plants located in Gebeng, Kuantan, Pahang. Most of the respondents were Malay (91.5%) and male (96.6%). Participants were administered a set of questionnaires (Cronbach alpha=0.674) that measured the safety climate as perceived by the workers towards their supervisor and KAP of the workers regarding safety-related matters at the workplace. Self-administered questionnaires consisted of 5 points Likert scale used to measure each of the items of safety climate and KAP. The scales for safety climate and KAP were probed using 16 items and 17 items in the questionnaires, respectively. The results were analysed using a non-parametric test, which is Spearman’s rho correlations and descriptive statistics. Bivariate analysis was performed. There was a moderate positive correlation between safety climate and KAP domains (Spearman’s rho: 0.581, p

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry
Fulltext An Integrated MCDM Model for Conveyor Equipment Evaluation and Selection in an FMC Based on a Fuzzy AHP and Fuzzy ARAS in the Presence of Vagueness

Nguyen HT, Dawal SZ, Nukman Y, Rifai AP, Aoyama H

PLoS One, 2016;11(4):e0153222.
PMID: 27070543 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0153222

The conveyor system plays a vital role in improving the performance of flexible manufacturing cells (FMCs). The conveyor selection problem involves the evaluation of a set of potential alternatives based on qualitative and quantitative criteria. This paper presents an integrated multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) model of a fuzzy AHP (analytic hierarchy process) and fuzzy ARAS (additive ratio assessment) for conveyor evaluation and selection. In this model, linguistic terms represented as triangular fuzzy numbers are used to quantify experts' uncertain assessments of alternatives with respect to the criteria. The fuzzy set is then integrated into the AHP to determine the weights of the criteria. Finally, a fuzzy ARAS is used to calculate the weights of the alternatives. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model, a case study is performed of a practical example, and the results obtained demonstrate practical potential for the implementation of FMCs.

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry*
Fulltext Acoustic comfort in industrial office: a preliminary study at a manufacturing company in Malaysia

Farah Elida Selamat, Rozli Zulkifli

Malaysian Journal of Public Health Medicine, 2016;16(101):7-14.
MyJurnal

Acoustics issues such as noise in the workplace remains one of the most prevalence occupational hazard especially in
the manufacturing industry with heavy machineries. Increasing mechanization in all industries and most trades has
since proliferated the noise problem. In Malaysia, much has been studied and is known about the auditory effects of
noise. However less attention has been given to the non-auditory effects of noise such as annoyance, stress, and work
performance, and concern about such effects is a relatively recent phenomenon. In view of this, this study aims to
determine the level of noise from different type of machines and tools in a manufacturing plant and also the effects
of noise to the employees. A structured questionnaire was used to assess the effects of noise on the workers and
sound level meter was used to measure the noise level at selected work areas. The results of this study showed that
nearly all the identified work areas exceeded the action level of 85 dB(A) and four of these areas noise levels’ are
more than 90 dB(A) which is the permissible exposure limit according to the Factories and Machinery (Noise
Exposure) Regulations 1989. For the questionnaire, it was found that annoyance topped the noise effects list with
51.4%, followed by stress with 40.0%, hearing deterioration (14.3%) and job performance deterioration (2.9%). As a
conclusion, noise control or preventive measures are suggested in order to minimize the health risks from noise
exposure.

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry
Accident patterns and prevention measures for occupational injuries in the Philippine food and beverage manufacturing industry

Prasetyo YT, Garcia MM, Dewi RS, Chuenyindee T, Kurata YB, Widia M

Work, 2022;73(4):1307-1324.
PMID: 36057804 DOI: 10.3233/WOR-210662

BACKGROUND: The manufacturing industry is one of the catalysts for the Philippines. However, this sector is one of the most dangerous industries in the Philippines considering the frequency of occupational injuries.
OBJECTIVE: To determine the primary and root causes of recorded accidents, demographics of the person involved, and solutions to prevent the recurrence of certain accidents.
METHODS: This study analyzed 185 occupational injury cases in a food and beverage manufacturing company in the Philippines from January to December 2018. A comprehensive classification system was established to examine and code each case in terms of age, gender, working shift, employee type, tenure, department, category, activity during the accident, root cause of injury, injury classification, direct cause of injury, type of injury, part of body injured, agent of injury, and location of the accident. Cramer's V analysis and Phi coefficient analyses were employed on the subject cases to determine the significant factors and the corresponding extent of significance.
RESULTS: The results showed that the majority of the occupational injuries were caused by stepping on, striking against, or stuck by objects (77 cases, 41.6%), caught in between (34 cases, 18.4%), fall (34 cases, 18.4%), and exposure or contact with extreme temperatures (24 cases, 13%). Interestingly, female workers who had accidents were more likely due to inadequate hazard information or lack of procedures whereas male workers were more likely due to failure to secure. The prevention measures such as passive safeguards and personal protective equipment, pictograms, and regular safety audits were derived from the results of these analyses.
CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first comprehensive analysis of occupational injuries in the food and beverage industry in the Philippines. The findings can be applied to positively influence the effectiveness of prevention and rehabilitation programs mitigating workplace injuries and illnesses.

Matched MeSH terms: Manufacturing Industry

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