MEGAPHYS - Multi-level risk analysis of physical stress at the workplace

Background

The research project was funded by the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) and the Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance (IFA, DGUV) and ran from 2013 to 2018. The project was conducted in cooperation with the following partners: ASER Institute, ArbMedErgo IFA, IAD, IfADo.

Goals

The objective of the joint research project was to develop a comprehensive inventory of methods that can be used to carry out occupational risk assessment of physical stresses/ workloads. The inventory of methods ranges from screening procedures at different evaluation levels to the measurement analyses.

Methodology

  • Literature study on existing procedures
  • Status analysis for the estimation of the occurrence of individual forms of physical stress
  • Development of evaluation models and procedure
  • Development of new or revised methods/ approaches for the different types of physical stresses
  • Evaluation in practice based on around 1000 workplaces
  • Revision of methods/ approaches

Results

At the IAD, expert screening – methods /approaches were designed and further developed, which can evaluate different physical stresses in short- and long-cycle activities:

  • 4 Expert screenings (paper & pencil worksheets for analysis /assessment of different types of physical stresses (posture, body/action forces, manual material handling, repetitive workload on the upper extremities)
  • Two Computer-aided tools “Megaphys-MonKras” for assessment of the heterogeneous action forces (AF) and “Megaphys-MultipLa” for assessment of the heterogeneous manual material handling (LH)
  • Body segment-specific assessment conceptual for workload type posture (P)

All results of the project are presented in volumes 1 and 2 of the report.

Link to the volume 1 : https://www.baua.de/DE/Angebote/Publikationen/Berichte/F2333.html

Bericht –Band 1 (Konzept und LMM-Methoden: https://www.baua.de/DE/Angebote/Publikationen/Berichte/F2333.html

Hartmann, B. ; Botter, J. ; Brandstädt, F. ; Ditchen, D. ; Ellegast, R.; Gebhardt, H. ; Glitsch, U. ; Hoehne-Hückstädt, U. ; Jäger, M. ; Jordan, C. ; Kaiser, B.; Klussmann, A. ; Schaub, Kh.; Schust, M. ; Sinn-Behrendt, A. ; Steinberg, U. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Arbeitsmedizin und Umweltmedizin (ed.) : MEGAPHYS: Entwicklung eines Methodenpakets zur Gefährdungsanalyse bei physischen Belastungen. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Arbeitsmedizin und Umweltmedizin (.) In: 54. Wissenschaftliche Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Arbeitsmedizin und Umweltmedizin e. V. (DGAUM), 02.-04.04.2014, Dresden.

Sinn Behrendt, A., M. Nickolai, Kh. Schaub, M. Jäger, D. Ditchen, R. Bruder (2018): MEGAPHYS – Risk assessment of physical work in manual material handling with multiple load cases by an expert-screening method. In: Proceedings of the 20th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2018), Florence, Volume 3: Musculoskeletal Desorders.

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