Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the naming of manual material handling equipment (MMHE) and its use in small and medium-sized Japanese retail enterprises, using a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire was distributed to 2,543 enterprises, of which 694 responded. We found that a typical hand truck with one wing was used by almost all of the enterprises, whereas a roll box pallet was used only by about 40% of these enterprises. Also, a two-winged hand truck, a hand truck with two shelves and a dolly were used by approximately 30% of these enterprises. We also observed that these MMHEs were named differently in different enterprises and therefore people could not answer the survey correctly. This meant that it was impossible to use occupational accident reports to judge the types of MMHE according to their potential to cause accidents and we also could not understand whether the accident was caused by flaws in the distinctive features of each MMHE. From these results, it was evident that all the retail enterprises should be informed of the formal and popular names of these MMHE, which may lead to more concrete measures for acquiring the necessary data. We also asked about their subjective danger when working with MMHE, and whether or not the enterprises had MMHE manuals. We found that the enterprises perceived the danger as generally low and that only approximately 10% actually had manuals. These results suggested that it was necessary to provide a worker’s manual to these companies in order to recognize the hazards in working with MMHEs.
