An Assessment of Manual Handling Hazards at a Mechanical Workshop. A Case Study of National Railways of Zimbabwe, Bulawayo

Diploma Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject Engineering - Safety Engineering, , course: Occupational Safety, Health and Environmental Management, language: English, abstract: This study assessed the manual handling hazards at the NRZ mechanical workshop in Bulawayo. The objectives of the research were the identification of MH hazards, determine the level of awareness of workers on manual handling issues and assessment of the control measures put in place at the organisation to deal with manual handling issues. The researcher adopted a case study research design while incorporating both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Five workshops were only selected namely Wagon, Fitting, Machine, Foundry and Carriage resulting in a sample of 153 questionnaire respondents which were distributed in a randomly. Key informants who were interviewed was the SHE practitioner, nurse in charge, and workshop foremen. More data was also gathered from relevant secondary data sources as well as from field observations. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse data and specifically using the Chi-Square test to establish correlations. The result indicated that the majority of the respondents are not aware of manual handling as revealed by the 73% of the respondents who indicated that they are not aware of manual handling. A number of manual handling hazards were identified which comprise of awkward postures, repetitive movements and vibration exposure which result in a number of injuries which are known as musculoskeletal disorders which encompass cuts muscle strain, sprains chronic pain and minor injuries, The research also noted that the measures which are put in place by management in dealing with manual handling are not effective as they lack strategic action thereby limiting the success of the measures. It was finally concluded that there is need to consider ergonomic interventions in the day to day operations of the company in order to reduce work related risk factors and injuries which come as a result of manual handling. Recommendations were also forwarded to the nation and company on how to address manual handling issues.