Integrating the Ergonomics Techniques with Multi Criteria Decision Making as a New Approach for Risk Management: An Assessment of Repetitive Tasks -Entropy Case Study.

BACKGROUND: Nowadays, the health work decision makers need to analyze a huge amount of data and consider many conflicting evaluation criteria and sub-criteria. Therefore, an ergonomic evaluation in the work environment in order to the control occupational disorders is considered as the Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problem. In this study, the ergonomic risks factors, which may influence health, were evaluated in a manufacturing company in 2014. Then entropy method was applied to prioritize the different risk factors.

METHODS: This study was done with a descriptive-analytical approach and 13 tasks were included from total number of employees who were working in the seven halls of an ark opal manufacturing (240). Required information was gathered by the demographic questionnaire and Assessment of Repetitive Tasks (ART) method for repetitive task assessment. In addition, entropy was used to prioritize the risk factors based on the ergonomic control needs.

RESULTS: The total exposure score based on the ART method calculated was equal to 30.07 ±12.43. Data analysis illustrated that 179 cases (74.6% of tasks) were in the high level of risk area and 13.8% were in the medium level of risk. ART- entropy results revealed that based on the weighted factors, higher value belongs to grip factor and the lowest value was related to neck and hand posture and duration.

CONCLUSIONS: Based on the limited financial resources, it seems that MCDM in many challenging situations such as control procedures and priority approaches could be used successfully. Other MCDM methods for evaluating and prioritizing the ergonomic problems are recommended.