Manual handling operations in an air shipping company: a comparison between risk evaluation methods

Manual handling operations are one of the risk factors during loading and unloading of cargo aircrafts. This work takes into account operations performed in different departments of an air shipping company following all manual operations, using two different types of container. In order to evaluate risks, six different methods have been used, four for lifting operations (KIM, MAC, NIOSH, OWAS) and two for towing operations (KIM, Snook & Ciriello). Experimental results from all these methods have been analyzed and compared finding that none of them was able to fully evaluate risks in this specific field: all the methods taken into account are based on a final, semi-quantitative index to compute risk level. This result remarks that it is up to specialists to choose the right method to apply to a specific activity, knowing its limits and possible outcomes and using it in conjunction to injuries data, to enhance safety in handling operations.