Paper Title
Analysis of Pneumatic Grinding Operator Discomfort in a Fabrication Industry

Abstract
Manual, pneumatic grinding plays a big role in several manufacturing industries, because of its flexibility and productivity and even in highly automated industries, the need for it is felt, because it effectively supplements even the automated production lines. This study evaluates the discomfort levels of the pneumatic grinders in a fabrication industry and its relationship to age, height, weight, gender, different body parts of the operators, in different product areas and at various times of the shift.Corlett and Bishop�s body part discomfort mapping was deployed for the data collection and ANOVA, for statistical analysis.The mean discomfort score (MDS) of the operators, increases over time and is the highest at the shift end. No significant difference in MDS was found because of age, gender, body weight and height of the operators. However, significantly higher discomfort was found in operators working in the heavy fabrication area, namely �drums and headers�. Among the body parts, significantly higher level of discomfort was noticed inthe shoulder, followed by wrist, neck, lower back, and forearm. Index terms - discomfort mapping; hand arm vibration; human engineering; pneumatic grinding; work-related musculoskeletal disorders