Design and evaluation of an ergonomic polisher for handcrafted Kalashpolishing workers in north-east India

Like various traditional handicrafts in India, handcrafted Kalashis well-known traditional handicraft produced in small-scale industries of Hajo, north-east India. This Kalashrequires polishing, which is performed by polishing workers with a traditional polisher in stooping position. Through a field study, 40 polishing workers were interviewed regarding musculoskeletal symptoms (MSS) using Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ). Among the workers, the lower back, upper back, elbows, and hands/wrists problems were most common. Based on the problems found, an ergonomic polisher was designed and evaluated using a digital human modelling approach in CATIA software. Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) test was used for analysing postures in both existing and new polishers. The results of RULA revealed that the new polisher improved the working posture noticeably in comparison to the existing one. Therefore, it is concluded that implementation of the proposed solution in a pragmatic way would reduce MSS among handcrafted Kalashpolishing workers.