How can we reduce the risk factors for repetitive motion injury (RMI)?
Poor workstation layouts, the conveyor-driven pace of work and the lack of variety of tasks through the work shift are the conditions that pose risks to develop repetitive motion injuries in a secondary fish processing plant. The RMI section of OSH Answers has more information on general ergonomic RMI risk factors. One of the main risk factors is the repetitiveness of the work. To change the repetitive pattern of the work a worker needs to do different tasks. The assembly-line type of work in the secondary fish processing plant makes it difficult to build a variety of activities in the workers’ duties. However, there are a few options to consider. Job rotation – Rotating jobs within one work shift can reduce the damaging effects of repetitive work. There are some benefits even where rotation occurs between similar tasks. The feeling of change reduces monotony and slows down the development of fatigue. Teamwork – The other possible approach is to use teamwork. Assigning the operation of
