Perfil antropométrico de operadores e avaliação ergonômica de colhedoras de cana-de-açúcar

Abstract

The mechanical harvesting of sugar cane has intensified in last few years, due to manual harvesting costs increase and the necessity of burning decrease. This work had as general objective to conduct an ergonomic evaluation of machines used to harvest sugarcane and the profile of the workers in this activity. The research was carried out at a plant of sugar production in Barra Bonita, state of Sao Paulo, in January 2007. The workers´ profile was evaluated through antropometric measures of weight and height of 70 individuals to determine the BMI (Body Mass Index). The ergonomic evaluation was accomplished according to the recommendations of the ergonomic classification manual "Ergonomic guidelines for forest machines" (Skogforsk, 1999), which classifies the machines into five distinct classes (A, B, C, D and 0). This classification was further converted to numeric values so as to permit a better evaluation. Concerning the workers´ profile, it was seen that 2 (2.8%) presented underweight, 13 (18.6%) had normal BMI, 40 (57.1%) were overweight and 15 (21.5%) evidenced obesity. In the ergonomic evaluation, the machine I demonstrated the best conditions for working, being classified as B. The others (II and III) presented less working conditions, being both classified as C. The classification by the numeric criterion also indicated a better performance of the machine "I". However the statistical analysis indicated non-significant difference between machines "I" and "III" and "II" and "III". The general conclusion of this study was that there is a need to adjust the conditions of the working space of these machines to the Brazilian workers. This is due to the fact that these are imported machines and designed to fit workers of better physical profiles than those here considered. Therefore, the control of the machines requires greater efforts, resulting in less yield in the harvesting operations.