WORKING ENVIRONMENT OF WOODEN FURNITURE INDUSTRIES IN KHON KAEN PROVINCE

Abstract

This research project was an investigative study on working environment in wood furnisher factories in Khon kaen province, Thailand. The aspects of working  environment covered were noise level, harmful particulates and brightness level or  illumination. These aspects were then compared to standards. During this project, an  interview was conducted on factories’ employees in manufacturing processes. There  were 4 factories participated in this investigation, one was a medium size factory, who

employed 52 workers and the others were small and had the combined workers of 17  persons. The gather data was then analysed using a commercially available statistic  program named SPSS and the method used were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and rage

The data analysis illustrated a few common results in regard to these factory workers  in the areas of sex, age and education. The employees were mostly male and the  percentage went as high as 94.1% in small factories. The average age was just below  45 years old and the large portion only graduated from primary school. The  percentage of person who finished primary school in medium size factory was lower  at 75% where the number went up to 84.2% in small factories. The normal working

time was 8 hours per day, 6 days a week and the factories open all year. While the  workers in medium size factory perform repetitive task and stay within an area of a  production line, workers in the others perform various tasks all over the factory. The  interview also revealed that the medium factory routinely has overtime, unlike the  small factories where this depend on the work. In regard to working condition, the large factory had an organised workplace with protection and safety equipment

provided. Whereas the small factories lacked good working environment.

The investigation of working condition were done by measuring parameters and then compared to standards, which found that the participated factories only meet the  standard on harmful particulate level.

Firstly, the measurement of the noise levels were 76.8-99.0 dBA in medium factory  and 75.1-96.4 dBA in small factories, therefore these workplaces fail the standard of  90 dBA. More importantly, the highest recorded noise level was 115.2 dBA near tools  area, which lead to tinnitus among the workers. The number of cases reported on  tinnitus in small factories was 4 times of the medium size factory (7.7%).

In the contrary, all the factories had lower measured particulate level than the  regulation at 5 mg/m3. The measured particulate levels were 0.09-0.22 and 0.03-0.29  mg/m3 for medium and small factories respectively. Even though they were within  the legal limit, 33.3% of the workers reported some irritation due to the particulates.

Moreover, The inspection of area around these factories showed that places were  dimly lid and the measured brightness levels or illumination were below the standard  (200-300 lux). The range of illumination varied widely from 44 to 710 lux at the  medium size factory and 150 to 1520 lux at the small factories. From working area  perspective, 80% of the working area in medium size factory failed to meet the  regulation, while the smaller ones perform only slightly better at 66.7%.  Lastly, the study complied no major accident at any factory, however; there were discomfort as a result of work such as back pain and muscle pain (70.6%) and there  were no report of injury involves harmful chemicals.