Assessment of Productivity and Ergonomic Conditions at the Production Floor: An Investigation into the Bangladesh Readymade Garments Industry

Abu Hamja, Malek Miguel Maalouf, Peter Hasle

Research output: Contribution to book/anthology/report/conference proceedingArticle in proceedingResearchpeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The goal of this study is to investigate the change in productivity in the garments production floor initiated by lean and to assess the possible consequences for health and safety of workers. The study covers six garments factories where production lines with 250 sewing machine operators were included. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were applied. Three key lean tools (VSM, 5S, Time and Motion Study) have been applied and significant changes in productivity were found. Subsequently the actual changes initiated by lean have been assessed. The ergonomic assessment shows that the tangible lean changes tended to have either a neutral or a positive effect on OHS, whereas negative consequences were limited to attempts in pushing workers to work faster. The latter is not necessarily an inherent part of the lean methodology. The paper thus suggests that there may be possibilities for using lean to improve OHS and that the frequent critique of lean for intensifying work may not always be true. However, more research is necessary to study long term consequence for both productivity and OHS.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 20th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2018) - Florence Italy : Ergonomics and Human Factors in Manufacturing, Agriculture, Building and Construction, Sustainable Development and Mining
EditorsSebastiano Bagnara, Yushi Fujita, Riccardo Tartaglia, Sara Albolino, Thomas Alexander
Number of pages11
PublisherSpringer
Publication date2018
EditionVIII
Pages162-172
ISBN (Print)978-3-319-96067-8
ISBN (Electronic)978-3-319-96068-5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018
Event20th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association, IEA 2018 - Florence, Italy
Duration: 26 Aug 201830 Aug 2018

Conference

Conference20th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association, IEA 2018
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityFlorence
Period26/08/201830/08/2018
SeriesAdvances in Intelligent Systems and Computing
Volume825
ISSN2194-5357

Keywords

  • Apparel
  • Ergonomics
  • Lean
  • Sewing

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