This paper discusses the findings of thermal comfort assessment at Malaysian
automotive industry. Nine critical workstations were chosen as subjects for
the study in order to determine the thermal comfort among workers at
Malaysian automotive industry. The human subjects for the study comprises of
the operators from tire receiving, dashboard assembly, drum tester, body
assembly, seat assembly, door check assembly, stamping workstation, engine
sub assembly and paint shop of the factory. The environmental factors such as
Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT), relative humidity, air velocity,
illuminance were measured using BABUC A apparatus and Thermal Comfort
Measurement equipment. Through questionnaire survey, the demographic data of
subjects and their perceptions on thermal comfort at each workstation were
assessed based on ISO Standard 7730 and thermal sensation scale using
Predicted Mean Vote (PMV). Then, Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied (PPD)
is used to estimate the thermal satisfaction of occupants. The results
indicated that most of the workstations of the automotive industry are
considered as uncomfortable. Tire receiving station is considered having
better working environment compared to other stations with lowest PMV index
of 1.09 to 1.41 and PPD of 46%. Meanwhile, the engine sub assembly station
and paint shop of assembly are considered the worst thermal environment with
the PMV index values ranging between 2.1 to 2.9 and PPD values of 81% to 99%.
Therefore, these two workstations are considered not comfortable because the
thermal sensation scale is warm and almost hot.
Computer aided design of sequencing problem – the concept of Paint Shop 4.0
