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The purpose of this paper is to comparatively examine the personnel working in the clothing sector by examining them in three different methods in order to determine the working postures, identification of the stress factors of musculoskeletal system and the exposures depending on the working postures. Methods used in the study, REBA (Hignett and McAtamney, 2000), Ovako Working Posture Analyzing System (OWAS) (Karhu et al., 1977) and PLIBEL (Kemmlert, 1995) are the scientific observation-based methods. Within the scope of this study, the working stations and the working postures of the operators who work in the clothing sector were examined and their movements that could cause harm to the body were examined and in conclusion some suggestions were suggested to prevent these movements.

Due to the standard unit of times in clothing sector are short and the work done is very repetitive, 30 min recording was thought as enough for each operator examined. These recorded videos were then divided into 30 s photographs to obtain the poses of the operators’ working postures. In the scope of the research, first, the PLIBEL observation form was filled as the PLIBEL method is more general one. According to the working postures, the body regions which are damaged or can be damaged were identified and the PLIBEL form was filled in the consideration of the risk factors in the form (Malchaire 2011). In addition, the photographs were also analyzed with REBA and OWAS methods for having more quantitative and detailed results.

The working postures of the operators who work in the cutting, sewing, ironing, quality control and packaging departments of six clothing companies were examined in the scope of this research with PLIBEL, REBA and OWAS methods in terms of ergonomy. The results belonging to each department were given separately. REBA and OWAS methods have been applied in order to investigate the working postures in more detail due to the lack of providing numerical data of the PLIBEL method. The reliability of the study has been approved with obtaining the similar results from the REBA and OWAS methods. According to Table VIII, both of the methods show that all the departments in question need ergonomic arrangements. It was analyzed that the cutting department is in the first place which needs ergonomic arrangement immediately (REBA %90.58, OWAS %87.69).

This study is composed of 65 operators who have experience between 5 and 22 years and in the age range of 22–43 working in the cutting, sewing, ironing, quality control and packaging departments in eight different clothing companies. These 65 operators were recorded by video camera during their work. The recording time were selected randomly. The movements of operators during their own work have been taken into consideration.

This paper indicates the usability of the PLIBEL, OWAS and REBA methods in clothing sector. Using these methods in clothing sectors states the value and the originality of this paper.

Unnatural working postures usually cause musculoskeletal problems for workers in work field, especially in traditional industry. Many analysis and survey methodologies have been developed to identify unnatural postures and disorder risks in workplaces. The Ovako Working Posture Analyzing System (OWAS) and Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ) are the representative methods and applied widely. This study applied the both tools to investigate the work field of a manufacturing factory of the water heater’s case. We divided the manufacturing process into nine workshops, took the pictures of working motions by DV camera and analyzed the postures on OWAS. From the OWAS results, we could identify the risks level of musculoskeletal symptoms as four Action Categories (AC). And from the comparison of OWAS and NMQ results, we could provide the suggestions to improve the working methods and environment. From the results of OWAS, we found that the operators) head/neck and back were above AC3 in some workshops. If the situation continued in long period, the operators might have the risk to get musculoskeletal symptoms. From the investigation of NMQ, we also found that the percentage of aches on neck, shoulders and lower back were higher than other parts of body. The correlation between aches and jobs was more than 75 per cent. So we provided some suggestions to improve: work rotation and adjustment of work surface/height to fit in with Ergonomics. Then the risks of musculoskeletal symptoms would be reduced.