This study develops a Road Safety Index (RSI) for commercial bus with the aim of determining whether the
proposed index can be beneficial to the stakeholders for the purpose of mitigating road accident and promoting road
safety. Five risk factors which include drivers, Vehicle, Task, Hazard/Risk and Road, where three critical factors out of
these factors, were identified as high contributing factors (Drivers, Vehicle and Road) were selected for the construction
of RSI. Drivers risk perceptions data were collected using survey instrument with sample size (n= 465) to test the
model and the data fits the model perfectly. The main benefits of this approach and the subsequent development of
RSI are: (1) Enable organisations to justify the investment on road safety by providing a measurement and evaluation
mechanism. (2) The index provides a balanced view of the impact of the three critical (DVR) risk factors that the
management can improve upon.
Studies have identified working postures as a major risk factors associated with Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSD) in industries. This study investigated the prevalence of WMSD among assembly workers in Malaysia and how psychosocial factors such as personal values and workers relationship with family and superior are associated with discomfort and pain. A survey was conducted among 127 workers at assembly process in the manufacturing industry. The workers were aged 28.74±6.74 years and 64.6% of them were males. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to determine the effect of workplace factors on WMSD at different body regions. Spearman’s rank correlation was used to investigate association between psychosocial factors and occurrence of discomfort and pain. Only occupation and job activities revealed any significant different with WMSD in the major body regions while there was no significant difference in gender, age and work duration classifications. Shoulder painis the most prevalent in terms of frequency and intensity of occurrence. Psychosocial issues that have to do with person values, effect of job on family relationship and workers rapport with superiors are all found to be associated with the discomfort and pain among the occupational group. Employers and concerned government agencies need to take more proactive steps in tackling the problem as the occurrence of WMSD will have a significant effect on the overall wellbeing of the working population.
This objective of the study is to estimate occupational accident cost in manufacturing industries, especially in
wood based related industries. The study attempts to identify, define, and classify the cost components of occupational
accident related cost and to catalogue the various economic approaches used to estimate the entire costs of occupational
accident and to propose the risk prevention plan. The study uses local specific approach by reviewing company
historical records on occupational accident as reported in JKKP 6, JKKP 8, JKKP 9 and company internal investigation
reports. For each occupational accident, the site safety officer in charge, human resource and, account employee,
supervisor, victim, related co-workers and relatives were interviewed in order to estimate direct costs, indirect costs,
prevention costs and other personal cost related to the accident. Other related information such as personal data of the
victim, type of injuries, location of injuries and cause of injuries were recorded. A total of 24 occupational accidents
data for the past five years were analyzed in the cost of accident summary report to determine the overall ratio of direct
to indirect cost and ratio of total cost of accident to prevention cost. A further analysis was carried out to determine
the most significant cost of accident related to demographic profiles for Malaysian and Non Malaysian employees. In
conclusion, this study has determined the ratio of direct to indirect cost of occupational accident and has proposed the
risk prevention plan with additional information on cost of accident and cost of prevention.
Geographically, Malaysia is situated in the equatorial region, thus having a climate of hot and humid throughout the
year. Effect of heat stress and physical work load at construction industry need to be investigated because of the high number of
accidents. Thus, perception of physical workload and heat stress by the construction workers in Malaysia needed to be investigated
and documented. The aim of this paper is to establish a set of questionnaires containing the item generation regarding on physical
workload and the heat stress perception of construction workers. Physical workload factors such as fatigue, risks, concentration,
work rhythm, responsibility, satisfaction, and autonomy are inserted as the items in assessing the physical workload. While heat
stress are assessed using heat risk factors such as temperature, humidity, heat radiation, air movement, workload, clothing and
acclimatisation. A questionnaire has been developed resulted from various reviewing of literatures on physical workload and heat
stress and better suited to the Malaysia working environment.
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.
The increase in Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) cases in the context of manufacturing industry in Malaysia in
the recent years has become a national concern. Therefore, the study aims to compare the severity of the WMSDs cases
involving electronic workers by using survey, interview, observation and experimental methods. The questionnaire
was designed and distributed to 204 assembly workers performing printer and inserting semiconductor in the electronic
sector. The ergonomic risk was assessed through direct observation of workers’ posture at their workstation using
WERA. In addition, Electromyogram (EMG) analysis was used to measure the muscle activity of workers. The result
shows that standing workers are exposed to consistent MSD more than sitting workers in all body regions except for
the upper back. According to WERA results, both postures contribute to high risk of MSD especially at wrist and leg
regions. In conclusion, there is a significant correlation in the findings from the survey, observation and EMG analysis
about the prevalence of MSDs among the workers, although the degree of prevalence differs in some body regions.
Hence, there is a need to identify more interacting variables associated with the problem.
This study aims to assess the level of Knowledge, Attitude and
Practices (KAP) on Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) from employer perspectives
in Malaysia industries. A developed KAP questionnaires were distributed and
returned by 39 employers. Most employer show good scores to majority of items in
Knowledge and Attitude sections. However, good practices are still lacking as the
scores are quite low for half of the items. Kruskal-Wallis test for independent sample
was used to test the relationship between gender and KAP scores. It was found out
that gender is linked with few items in Knowledge and Attitude section (r < 0.05)
while no indication of relationship with Practice scores. As the number of reported
MSDs cases are increasing in Malaysia, hence understanding of KAP factors are
crucial in order to tackle the problem.
Currently accident cost calculations involve lengthy process of data collection procedures. Accident cost
calculations can be categorized into direct and indirect costs. Many manufacturing industries are having difficulties
in identifying and quantifying the accident cost category. Besides, it involves manual data collection which is time
consuming and has high tendency to make errors throughout the process. The data collection process also involves
various parties. For example, getting direct cost data from human resource department while indirect cost data need
to be obtained from manufacturing and safety department. The objective of this study is to propose Web-Based
interactive Accident Cost Calculator (WBACC) for manufacturing industries. This WBACC has two options; option
1: calculations based on input data at the time of accident. Option 2: calculations based on historical data such as
previous accident records. Option 1 is much simpler because it only requires accident demographic data while option
2 is much more complex. However, option 2 is more accurate compared to option 1. This proposed WBACC can be
used by safety and health practitioners to convince their top management in making decisions especially on safety
budget allocation.