ON- SITE WORK EVALUATION AN OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY BASED SURVEY FOR TEXTILE INDUSTRY

The textile and garment industry is one of the most rapidly growing industrial sectors, providing large scale employment especially in developing countries. It includes multiple labor-intensive process such as fabric cutting, stitching, printing, ironing, packing and finishing. These activities require constant human involvement despite increasing mechanization. Hence, workers are frequently exposed to the risk of work related musculoskeletal disorders. Occupational Therapy profession includes its scope not only in Individual therapies, BUT in industrial areas also. Hence, irrespective of area of work, the ergonomic factors involved in particular, tasks such as sewing, ironing and packing are analysed through ON JOB analysis in this study at TIRUPUR. This “Knitwear Capital of Tamil Nadu” contributes significantly to both domestic and international textile exports. With its booming industry Tirupur has created livelihood opportunities for lakhs of workers. A descriptive cross sectional observational study was conducted among workers in this textile industry. The study involved on-site work evaluation using standardized ergonomic assessment tools such as RAPID ENTIRE BODY ASSESSMENT (REBA) and CORNELL MUSCULOSKELETAL DISCOMFORT QUESTIONNAIRE (CMDQ) to identify ergonomic risk factors and musculoskeletal discomfort across different departments.