Roles of Pinch Grips in Different Knob Selections among Malaysian Manufacturing Workers

Abstract

The development of hand-related musculoskeletal injuries can be caused by pinch grips that fail to accommodate different control interfaces. One of the frequently used control interfaces in manufacturing industries is the knob. To date, there are limited statistical studies that investigate and support how different ways of executing pinch grips affect the selections of different knobs, even though there have been some studies theoretically suggesting a relation between different pinch grips and shapes of knobs. The purpose of this paper is to determine the roles of different pinch grips on the knob selections of a number of manual workers from Malaysian manufacturing firms. Regression analysis is used for this study. Survey responses were entered into Minitab 16 for analysis. The findings show that majority of the workers normally use the pulp pinch and lateral pinch, and prefer to use the lateral pinch for their manual tasks. The selection of these pinch grips also considerably affects the selection of the knobs that the workers control. The findings are valuable preliminary guidelines for identifying the ideal pinch grips that accommodate different knobs to potentially reduce hand-related injuries in Malaysian manufacturing industries.