Analysis of the workload imposed on the workers of the imprint and cutting/welding sectors of a flexible packaging manufacturer L. B. de M. Guimarães a* , S.L.R. Pessa b and C. Biguelini a a Graduate Program in Industrial Engineering, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Av. Osvaldo Aranha 99 5 o andar, Porto Alegre, RS, 90035-190, Brazil, E-mail: liabmg@gmail.com; ceciliabiguelini@gmail.com b Department of Mechanical Engineering, Federal Technological University of Paraná, Via do Conhecimento, km 1, Pato Branco, PR, 85503-390, Brazil, E-mail: slpessa@utfpr.edu.br Abstract. This article presents a study on the evaluation of the workload imposed to workers of two sectors of a flexible pack- aging manufacturer that operates in three shifts. The workers are allocated in one of the shifts (morning, evening and night shifts) without evaluation of their chronotype and/or social needs. The Imprint sector has a more dynamic work, which is done only by man due to the effort demanded by handling loads. The work in the Cutting/Welding sector is static, done mainly by women. The results showed that the overall workload was the same in the Imprint and Cutting/Welding sectors, because physi- cal effort for load handling is higher in the former but the latter involves high static load. The levels of urinary catecholamines and salivary cortisol were consistent with the workers biological clock showing that none of the workers changed his/her bio- logical cycle to accommodate to the time of the shift schedule. Keywords: shiftwork, workload, physiological parameters, subjective parameters. * Corresponding author. Email: liabmg@gmail.com tel: +55 (51) 3308-3948 fax: +55 (51) 3308-4007 1. Introduction The negative impacts of night and shiftwork on health (more fatigue, sleep deprivation and patholo- gies), familiar and social unbalance as well as work- ers efficiency has been widely discussed in the liter- ature. Night work determines that workers meals are often irregular, taken in unusual hours, very different from the schedules the worker has in the non working days or during daytime work. The alterations on rest- ing hours impact on the biological rhythm and the worker cannot control the effects on both physical and cognitive functions because they are synchro- nized with the biological rhythm of sleep and vigi- lance [22]. The consequences are insomnia, irritation, excessive sleepiness during the day, lethargy during night work, continuous fatigue, disruption of diges- tive treat functioning and increase in cardiovascular diseases [3,25,45]. Focused attention is reduced due to sleepiness, open eyes involuntary naps are frequent without being perceived by the worker, accident’s risk increase, and production discontinues. Road ac- cidents, for example, are more likely during night [3,67]. Higher mortality rate was found in fixed night shift Imprint workers [65]. The adverse effects of night and shiftwork might be minimized by reducing the number of night work and compensating with more time offs [40,43-44]. More than three consecutive night shifts should be avoided [3] in order to generate more time for reco- vering from fatigue, sleep deprivation and biological alterations: the more night shifts, the worse the quali- ty of sleep [23]. Work schedule should be well de- fined by the type of system, beginning and end of each shift, duration and frequency, the number of Work 41 (2012) 1647-1655 DOI: 10.3233/WOR-2012-0366-1647 IOS Press 1647 1051-9815/12/$27.50 © 2012 – IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved