he practice of 5S has been adopted by many organizations as a method to organize the workplace towards reducing waste and improving productivity. Moreover, the practice also promotes a safe and efficient environment in organisations. As safety performance of the workplace is among the key issues in most industries including universities to become world class organizations, this study seeks to address empirically the impact of 5S practice on safety management performance. In this context, a survey questionnaire is employed and distributed to 60 employees of the selected university to examine the employees’ perception on the adoption of 5S practice as well as the impact of 5S practice towards safety management performance. The questionnaires were validated by a pilot test with an acceptable value of Cronbach's alpha. Overall findings highlight there was positive perceptions toward 5S practice among the respondents. The results also revealed that 5S Audit has a very strong positive correlation with safety management performance. Furthermore, 5S Training and Top Management Commitment were (2) factors that strongly correlated to safety management performance. These factors are highly important in contributing toward the success of safety management performance. Additionally, since most of the employees were not exposed with Occupational Safety and Health (OSH), this study reveals moderate negative correlation between compliance to OSH Requirements and safety management performance.
In the electronic industry, prolonged standing works are sometimes required continuously for hours. The physical efforts
required lead to physiological and psychological fatigue resulting in reduced muscle performance. In order to recover from the muscle
exertion, one of the solutions is through the administrative control of a suitable work-rest schedule. In this study, two different workrest
conditions with identical total break time were investigated. An experiment was carried out when ten males’ workers were used
in each condition. The perception of the operator regarding to the body part discomfort were carried out by exploratory survey. Then,
Electromyography (EMG) was used to record the muscle fatigue of the participating workers throughout the experiment. Results
indicate infrequent-long rest promotes lesser muscle efforts compared to frequent short. The frequent short rest for 5 minutes (2X5
minutes) at first half of working day was not adequate to promote reduction on muscle fatigue. It was recommended that in order to
ensure adequate muscle recovery, a more frequent rest of more than 2 times at the half of day, and more than 5 minutes for each rest
should be given to workers.
This study is carried out to establish the prevalence of Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSD) among
the Malaysian workforce population in order to propose some measures to benefit the people at large. Secondary data
from three studies among drivers, clerical workers using visual display terminals (VDT) and fabrication workers were
used to report the prevalence of MSDs and the associated risk factors. The study identified high prevalence of MSDs in
multiple body regions. The MSD occurrence was also significantly associated with psychosocial factors. There is need
for organisations to consider such factors in work design, which will reduce the high prevalence and high financial
implications associated with MSDs among workers.
Industries in Malaysia are entering a period of major disruption caused by new technologies such as Artificial Intelligent, Robotics, Blockchain, Nanotechnology as well as Building Information Modelling (BIM) and the Internet of Things (IoT). In this fourth industrial revolution where information is generated and exchanged at a rapid and huge scale, its reliability is of paramount importance. The success of Occupational Safety & Health Management System (OSHMS) is highly dependent on the reliability of the information gathered and used, where a large number of intermediaries authenticate the information to establish trust between the stakeholders. Blockchain technology is able to do verification by virtue of secured distributed storage brings about a paradigm shift in the way we establish trust. This paper gives an overview of the potential use of Blockchain technology for Occupational Safety & Health Management System. The discussions focused on the benefits and challenges of implementing the Blockchain technology in OSHMS. The conclusion is drawn based on the strength in the characteristics provided by the Blockchain technology itself.
Working in a safe working posture is a necessity to enhance occupational health of industrial workers. Poor
working posture may lead to injuries, discomfort and fatigue to the workers. The objective of this study is to survey the
postures practised by the Malaysian industrial workers. A questionnaire survey was performed among 282 Malaysian
industrial workers in 10 different industries. From the answered questionnaire, it was observed that shoulder at chest
level (30.1%), back in a bent forward (33.3%) and lifting heavy load (44.7%) are the major work postures practised by
most of industrial workers. This survey identifies that working with shoulder and hand at chest level and back region
moderately bent forward is the main working posture practice by worker. Workers also reported lifting load below 5 kg
at the workstation. This survey recommended for industrial workers to be aware of the comfortable working posture
to avoid injury.
Rapid development of technology has made simulator as a promising training tool. Advantages offered such as interactive and realistic training environments, mistake tolerance and training in hazardous scenario without causing harm to trainee, cost effectiveness, opportunity of training review and training time flexibility makes simulator widely used in aviation training, driver training, medical training and rehabilitation. Despite of these advantages, a major drawback of simulator is simulator sickness. Simulator sickness is a condition caused by inconsistency perceived by our vestibular system. Effected individual reported that they are experiencing nausea, fatigue, postural instability, headaches and difficulty in focusing which linger for hours or days in some cases. This paper will discuss the simulator usage and simulator sickness condition in Malaysia as experienced by researchers and a few organizations that use simulator as their training tool.
Societal dynamics and increased public demands on education have produced adverse stressful classroom situation that have led to increase emotional and physical disabilities among teacher. The main objective of this descriptive study was to identify the causes of occupational stress amongst secondary school teachers. This study also conducted in order to determine the suitable ways and strategies at helping teachers to cope with the work related pressures that have increased during the past decade. The samples of this study were 100 teachers from four secondary schools in Dungun District, Terengganu. The data were descriptively analyzed based on the responds on a set of questionnaires, checklist and 20 interview sessions conducted for exploration of coping strategy with 20 out of 100 teachers. Based on the finding, it can be concluded that interpersonal relations, physical conditions and job interest contribute towards workrelated stress among teachers. Also discussed the 10 most frequently used coping strategies by teachers. Therefore, there are suggesting measures, which teachers may take to help them cope more effectively with potentially stressful situations at school.
The indoor air contaminations in the buildings are normally contributed by causes from humans, animals and air
borne fungi. These factors greatly cause the problem of sick building syndrome and indoor air pollutant. This study
was undertaken to discover the potential efficiency of biocide potassium sorbate to remediate the indoor air fungal
especially on wood material. Samples of fungal were collected according to NIOSH Method (NMAM 0800). The total
amount of fungi and bacteria were enumerated at 806 cfu/m3 and 280 cfu/m3, respectively in a lecturer’s room. The
study also revealed that the growth of fungi was at the minimum when incorporated with a biocide treatment according
to ASTM D559000 standard. This biocide has been proven to be effective and able to reduce the growth rate of indoor
fungi. Overall results showed that this type of biocide is effective to overcome the fungal problem on wood material
in the buildings.
Legionellosis is a respiratory infection caused by gram-negative bacteria known as Legionella. Although there are
many species of Legionella, the majority of all reported cases of legionellosis were caused by Legionella pneumophila.
Investigations of Legionella outbreaks comprised sampling building water systems for the presence of Legionella.
The aim of this study is to determine the isolation techniques with the most optimal yield for detection of Legionella
based on the Australian/New Zealand Standard Waters –Examination for Legionella (AS/NZS 3896:2008). This is an
experimental research, in which, Legionella species will be spiked in a bottle of water and various isolation techniques
will be conducted. As most cases of Legionellosis are caused by Legionella pneumophila group, this group of species
will be used.
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
Recent fire accidents in schools have given rise to the safety
issues. Training on fire safety is very important to help improve the safety aspect
in schools while perceptions of fire safety training among school teachers are
crucial in order to identify methods to prevent accidents from recurring. This
study was conducted in order to analyze the perceptions of school teachers
towards fire safety training in schools. Survey questionnaires were distributed
among 400 school teachers from 111 schools randomly selected from ten District
Education Offices (DEO) in Kelantan. The results were analyzed using
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). They were based on 32% and
68% male and female respondents respectively. Descriptive analysis shows that
most of the school teachers agreed with the need for fire safety training to be
conducted in schools. This study suggests that school teachers require fire safety
training in order for them to help improve fire safety in schools. Thus, teachers
will be able to teach their students on the importance of fire safety, how to
prevent fire and actions to be taken if an emergency happens in schools. It is
hoped that the number of fire accidents in schools can be reduced with the school
communities’ commitment towards safety.
Solar thermal system or solar water heater system is one of the applications used to produce hot water in the residential sector. This paper describes HAZOP analysis and reliability assessment to evaluates the potential hazard and system probability for the closed loop solar thermal system applied for the residential area. Hazard identification for the main system components is analyzed while Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), Reliability Block Diagram (RBD) and Weibull distributions performed to determine the reliability for the overall system. The result shows that there are 49 potential hazards for the system with failure probability at 0.23822 and the reliability is 0.9693. Subsequently, this study determined the potential hazards for the system which can be anticipated by the residential consumer for the safety aspect. Furthermore, the evaluated reliability result shows that the application of closed loop type solar water heater system at residential premises is highly recommended due to its long lasting operational condition.
Purpose - The aims of this concept paper are to critically review and identify gaps in current literature on personality
and safety performance, provide a definition of personality and safety performance, explore the role of personality on
safety performance, come out with recommendation for future research. Design/methodology/approach - Review and
synthesis of literature. Findings - All dimensions of Big Five Personality (Openness to Experiences, Conscientiousness,
Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) have contributed to the safety performance. Research limitations/
implications - Personality for this concept paper refers to the Model of Big Five. Future studies should explore other
personality types such as Myers Briggs Personality and Holland Personality. Practical implications - The authors
recommended that organizations need to design test of personality specially for safety and health and use it during the
interview session in order to select the right candidate to serve them for enhancing safety performance. Originality/
value - This concept paper offers a set of interesting lessons for organizations by providing the positive personality
that must be apply by employees based on Big Five Personality model that will assist to improve safety performance.
Medium penyampaian maklumat merupakan media pengajaran utama yang digunakan dalam menyampaikan
maklumat kepada pekerja tempatan dan juga asing dalam Kursus Induksi Keselamatan dan Kesihatan (KIKK).
Justeru, kertas kerja ini menumpukan kepada perbincangan mengenai permasalahan serta hasil kajian lepas berkaitan
penggunaan media penyampaian maklumat sedia ada oleh pekerja asing dalam KIKK. Kesimpulan hasil kajian
perpustakaan mendapati terdapat beberapa masalah penggunaan media penyampaian maklumat sedia ada ini daripada
aspek penggunaan bahasa, cara penyampaian dan medium penyampaian. Bahasa Melayu lazimnya digunakan sebagai
bahasa pengantar semasa penyampaian maklumat dalam KIKK sama ada dalam bentuk teks mahupun penyampaian
lisan. Namun, penggunaan Bahasa Melayu ini didapati tidak difahami oleh kebanyakan pekerja asing terutamanya
pekerja asing bukan warga Indonesia. Cara penyampaian maklumat juga dilihat bersifat satu hala dan kurang difahami
serta medium penyampaian yang digunakan kurang interaktif dan berbentuk presentasi. Malah, medium penyampaian
maklumat seperti PowerPoint yang digunakan masih belum cukup kemas untuk memenuhi keperluan kerja pekerja
asing di tapak bina yang mana teks bahasa Melayu terlalu panjang digunakan, susunan teks dan grafik tidak kemas,
saiz teks tidak konsisten serta penggunaan grafik yang kurang jelas.
Air pollution in steel making operations effect to respiratory health. This study aimed to measure the dust exposure and evaluate the respiratory health among steel workers. A cross sectional study was conducted among 402 male workers. Respiratory symptoms using British Medical Research Council (BMRC) Questionnaire while lung function was measured The airborne dust [PM2.5, PM10, and Total Particulate Matter (TPM)] were monitored by Handheld 3016 Counter. All the parameters studied exceeded the limit of Malaysian guideline standard. Prevalence of chronic phlegm, chest of tightness, and shortness of breath were 35.8 %, 32.8 %, 23.4 %, and 22.4 %, respectively. significant differences between shortness of breath and work section (2=9.236, p=0.026) and %FEV1/FVC with work section [F (3, 3.98=3.194), p=0.025]. Smoking was associated with chronic cough (Adj OR =1.07, 95% CI: phlegm (Adj OR =1.05, 95% CI: 1.03 - 1.08), and shortness of breath (Adj OR = 1.05, 95% CI: 1.00 past respiratory illnesses was associated with chest tightness (Adj OR = 2.24, 95% CI: 1.04 - 4.84) and (Adj OR = 4.16, 95% CI: 1.92 - 9.92). Duration of employment was associated with FEV1 (β=-0.025, 0.020) while past respiratory illnesses was associated with %FEV1/FVC (β =-1.784, 95% CI: -3.017 workers are at risk of developing respiratory symptoms and lung function impairment.
The construction industry is one of the largest sectors in Malaysia. This industry has become one of the main contributors
for national economic development and consistently contributes 3% to 5% to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This
sector has also opened up job opportunities for various levels of employment. High demands and rapid urbanization offer huge
opportunities for registered contractors. Despite contributing in enhancing national economics, this sector has been regarded as one
of the most dangerous and hazardous workplaces due to the type of nature and the job activities at construction sites. According to
the International Labour Organization (ILO), 2.3 million fatalities related to occupational accidents and illnesses are estimated to
occur each year. Furthermore, 4 percent of world GDP is estimated to be lost due to occupational accidents and illnesses. The number
of fatality accidents in the construction industry was the highest with 652 cases of non-permanent disability (NPD) and permanent
disability (PD) accidents in the period 2007 to 2015, equivalent to 72.44 cases per year and representing 48.77% of the construction
industry. The huge gap between the number of accidents reported to SOCSO and DOSH becomes a major concern due to a rising
number of underreported cases of fatalities and injury in the construction sector, especially those involving foreign labour. The margin
between accidents reported to SOCSO and DOSH is 97.49%. Regards to rapid developments, safety measures to improve performance
management of OSH should be emphasized to reduce losses of life, property and productivity.
Pineapple plantation workers are exposed to strenuous physical activities. This study aims to determine the prevalence
of musculoskeletal symptoms (MSS), analyse the body postural risks related to work tasks and identify relevant MSS risk factors
among pineapple plantation workers. This was a cross-sectional study performed at a pineapple plantation in Johor in 2016. MSS,
information on socio-demographic background and occupational history were collected via structured questionnaires. Identification
and risk assessment of ergonomic hazard and postural risk analysis were performed for a subset of workers. Data were entered into
statistical software and analyse according to relevant objectives. A total of 108 workers participated in this study. The prevalence
of MSS was 87.0% and was highest for the lower back (64.8%). In terms of ergonomic hazards, Harvesting were categorised as a
task with the highest risk. Harvesting was also the task with the highest postural risk. From the multivariate analysis, lower back
pain is mainly contributed by a working tenure of 10 to 25 years (Odds Ratio, OR: 3.90; 95% Confidence Interval, CI 1.05-14.4) and
more than 25 years (OR: 7.45 (95% CI 1.26 to 44.0). Workers who worked more than 7-hour daily have a higher risk for reporting
lower back pain. Pineapple plantation workers are exposed to excessive bending, twisting and carrying of heavy loads that may be
linked to MSS. Effective preventive strategies are required to address MSS in this population in order to minimize risk for subsequent
musculoskeletal disorders.
The prevalence of Musculoskeletal Symptoms (MSS) rapidly increases and it is recognized as a significant health outcome in agricultural sector. Agricultural ergonomics risk factor is one of hazards constantly arising from all job task activities including awkward postures and heavy lifting. Job hazard analyses (JHA) were conducted to assess the exposure of ergonomics risk factors in Malaysia Pineapple Plantation. The analyses performed involved two steps. They were: 1) guidelines and manual book Malaysia Pineapple Plantation as references; and 2) conducting walkthrough observation based on checklist approaches at the plantation. The identified risk factors were prolonged exposure of standing, squatting, stooping and kneeling, highly repetitive motion on the lower limbs, deviation and twisting of wrist and lastly, heavy lifting. The analyses confirmed that the exposure to ergonomics risk factors in pineapple plantation is high. It would be desirable to reduce the risk factors by educating and training the pineapple workers to perform their task with strong consideration of occupational safety and health.
The occurrences of occupational accidents and incidents are increasing in parallel with the growth of industries
such as mining and quarrying. The main objective of this study was to analyze data on the perception of occupational
accidents in the mining and quarrying sector in Malaysia. The data was collected and examined based on the
questionnaires on the level of perception of accident investigation in mining and quarrying sector. Statistical data
reported by the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) was also reviewed. The findings of this study
prove that the level of perception of workers towards occupational accident issues in mining and quarrying sector
is still in the moderate level with the mean value of 3.28. The findings show that 51.7% of the workers agree while
25.9% totally agree to the accident occurrence. Only 1.7% of the workers are not aware of accident occurrence at the
workplace. Employers and employees must carry out their responsibilities to prevent accidents by adhering to health
and safety practices at the workplace.
This is a cross-sectional study with the objective to determine the association between complaints Musculoskeletal Disorders
(MSDs) and mismatch of the seats in lecture hall of Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS), Universiti Putra Malaysia
(UPM). A total of 132 respondents whom were undergraduate students were involved in this study consist of 47 male and 85 female.
Eight anthropometric measurement (height, weight, popliteal height, buttock-popliteal height, shoulder height, subscapular height,
elbow height and hip width while sitting) as well as five (5) furniture parameter dimensions (seat height, seat depth, seat width,
upper edge backrest height and desk height) were taken. Instruments used were questionnaire modified from Nordic Musculoskeletal
Questionnaire, Martyn anthropometer set, measuring tape, height scale and weighing scale. Findings showed 51.5% mismatch of
seat height, 5.3% mismatch of seat depth, 94.7% mismatch of desk height and 18.2% mismatch of upper edge of back rest. For the
prevalence MSDs in the past seven (7) days, 61.4% reported low back pain followed by neck pain (50%) and upper back pain (43.9%).
There was significant difference between genders in anthropometric body measurement. Significant association were found between
MSDs and mismatch χ2 = 5.406, p < 0.05. In conclusion, there was an association between MSDs and ergonomics furniture of lecture
halls in FMHS, UPM. Based on the findings, it is recommended that in the event of long lecture hour, intermittent break should be
allowed for students to stretch, move or better yet assume different posture such as standing or walk.