The 30-Inch View

More Material Handling Solutions

In this month’s Professional Safety magazine, they highlight Rubbermaid’s new material handling product line with a range of application-specific designs.  

Jump to view this part of the Rubbermaid website by clicking here.

Experienced Material Handling Equipment

Contributed by Miguel Gonzalez from Humantech

Hello everyone,

If ergonomic improvements have stalled at your facility due to budget constraints, we wanted to direct you towards these resources that provide some "experienced" manual material handling equipment.

American Surplus Inc

www.americansurplus.com

(800) 989-7176

1 Noyes Avenue; East Providence, RI 02916

 

SJF Material Handling Equipment

www.sjf.com/specials.html

(320) 485-2824

211 Baker Ave. W; Winsted, MN 55395

Some thoughts on stretching to reduce work injuries

Contributed by Christy Lotz, CPE

The current ASSE online e-magazine The Monitor (http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/357229e6) includes an article titled Is Your Stretch and Flex Program Cutting-Edge?  In it, Deborah Reed (MOTR/L) quotes several studies with respect to the effectiveness of stretching at work on reducing injuries.  The article alludes to those injuries caused by poor ergonomic conditions.

After an extensive literature review, the author states that there is not a lot of evidence to support static stretching as a means of reducing injuries.  This is true for both an athlete and the industrial worker.  Stretching programs have recently become popular as a means to prevent injury in industry.  Sometimes these static stretches are performed in a group at the beginning of a shift or individually at the workstation throughout the shift. 

The author does state, and I am in agreement, that there is a clear difference between static and dynamic stretches.  Dynamic or ballistic stretching is more like a “warm-up” for the muscles as opposed to static stretching.  This is beneficial for both athletes and industrial workers.  The goal is to get the blood flowing to the muscles that will be taxed during the activity or work.  Blood flow is beneficial for a number of reasons including the transport of oxygen and nutrients to muscles and removal of waste.  This has a positive impact in terms of preventing injuries of muscle tissue.  Therefore, if you are going to provide any stretching program, it should be approached more like a “warm-up” session as opposed to just a static stretching program.  In addition, stretching throughout the day is much better than one session at the beginning of the shift, but that is not usually the approach in industry to these types of programs.

It is my experience that a well-designed workstation (i.e., based on good ergonomic principles) has an even bigger impact on injury reduction than a stretching program.  If a workstation is designed to keep the operator working in a neutral posture and reduce stressors that contribute to injury, the operator will feel a positive impact for an entire 8-hour shift.  Whereas a stretching program is often performed for the first 10-15 minutes of the shift and the effects are supposed to last for the remainder of the day.  Of the research cited in this article, none of the studies mentioned the benefits of short stretching periods for long durations of work.  The author compared the sports athlete to the industrial worker throughout the article, but an athlete often exercises for 2 hours per day, so stretching may show benefits, whereas an industrial worker works 8-hours per day so the benefits of stretching must last much longer and this impact is not shown in the cited articles.

Overall, I agree that ballistic stretching and warm ups throughout the shift is beneficial, but proper workstation setup (i.e., reducing the risk factors of MSD injuries), minimizes the need for employees to  warm up in the first place. Considering ergonomics early in the process will benefit the operator and show a more significant impact in terms of decreased cost and increased productivity.

October is National Ergonomics Month

Happy National Ergonomics Month!

Did you know that October is National Ergonomics Month? Beginning in 2003, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) designated October to formally recognize the countless hours of research that go into the ergonomics profession.  The goal is to promote the application of ergonomics through teaching, learning, networking, service, and fun!

 

Stay in the loop by becoming an HFES member today, or check out the National Ergonomics Month website at: http://hfesnem.org/

Thanks to Greg Cresswell of Humantech for this post.

Kebab Ergonomics (in Istanbul)

Submitted by Kevin Perdeaux, Humantech Consultant

I was recently traveling through Turkey, and was amazed at the number of kebab shops.  This staple snack includes shredded chicken, beef or lamb from a vertical rotating spit, packed into bread with onions, tomatoes, lettuce and topped off with lemon juice and salt.

With such high demand, kebab shopkeepers spend hours with their arms at shoulder level shaving meat with large knifes and cutting utensils; a definite ergonomic risk! This shop decided to replace the manual tools with an electric planar to ease meat shaving and improve task efficiency.

We are always interested to hear about improved work engineering from outside North America, so feel free to post any photos or stories.

Learning from your other successful processes

A common misconception in industry is that an unsuccessful ergonomics process is due to a lack of the necessary tools to make it successful.  However, many companies have the tools in house to advance their ergonomics initiatives - they just need to recognize the successes from their other processes and apply the same concepts to their ergonomics initiative!

A recent article from EHSToday  focuses on the success of Hospira Inc. (Injectable Pharmaceuticals) at reducing their carbon footprint and overall environmental waste. There are a number of steps that can be taken from this article that are often related to flourishing ergonomics processes as well:

1. Set goals and create leading metrics (risk reduction, number of individuals trained, number of “red” jobs) – the first step in any ergonomics process is to set goals that are achievable and measurable. Without this, the success of an ergonomics process has to rely on lagging metrics (e.g. injury reduction) which can take years to measure accurately.

2. Management support and approval – ensure management has a strong desire to make the process successful. Put information into terms they can stand behind (return on investment, waste reduction, increased productivity). With management buy-in, the uphill battle becomes a smooth sail.

3. Financial sense – everyone needs to understand the importance of ergonomics to the bottom line and to the safety of operators. With workers compensation costs often costing millions of dollar annually, it is easy to realize that if your ergonomics process is costing you money, you’re doing it wrong.

4. Follow a process (plan, do, check, act) – create and follow a model to be able to continuously improve. This will allow you to easily identify opportunities for improvement and ensure that the most effective countermeasures are implemented.

5. Employee involvement – employees are the absolute experts at their jobs and often have the best improvement ideas.  Their involvement is therefore a key element to the success of an ergonomics initiative. Focusing on the 30-inch view between the operators and their work environment will often result in cost savings due to rework, increased productivity, and overall improved morale.

Following these steps is a great way to kick-off an ergonomics process.

Submitted by Christy Lotz, CPE

 

Facilities Managers role... (Part 2)

Submitted by Walt Rostykus, B.S., MSPH, CIH, CSP, CPE

Continued from my previous post on the “Safety Pays” article in the May edition of Today’s Facility Manager magazine.

What really caught my attention in the article is the complete lack of attention to engineering controls to improve safety.  The author used the example of injuries caused by poor ergonomic conditions and recommends training, back belts, revised job descriptions to limit the allowable weight lifted, and to rotate jobs…  Whatever happened to the Hierarchy of Controls?  Facilities Managers are the key decision makers and influencers to ensure the workplace, equipment layout, and tools are designed to fit the capabilities of people, and to identify and eliminate ergonomic risk factors.

• If you design the workplace so material is placed a waist level instead of the floor, you automatically eliminate the need to bend and lift. 
• If you have materials delivered in smaller volume, or provided lifting assist devices, you reduce the risk of the lift and eliminate the need for training and back belts.
• If you reduce the awkward postures and high forces required to perform work through the design of the workstation, you eliminate the need to rotate people and provide breaks.

The author primarily recommends administrative and personal protective equipment controls - recommendations that either don’t work or have limited effectiveness!  A few key points to consider:

• Training is only effective if employees regularly practice what they were taught (and that the advice was correct).  Asking someone to work safely in an unsafe environment, or to lift an unsafe weight safely, is unfair to people at work
• Back belts were proven to not be effective preventing injuries among uninjured workers (NIOSH 1994).
• Setting limits for the weight people are allowed to lift is an easy, inexpensive, but ineffective solution.  Again you are depending on the individual behaviors of people to work safely in an unsafe environment.
• Job rotation and rest breaks only affect one of the three primary risk factors for WMSDs (duration/frequency).  Job rotation must be based on the ergonomic risk factors present in a job; otherwise you may rotate someone from a low risk to high risk exposure. 

The lesson here is “Go back to your roots; Engineering.  Pursue engineering controls in the design and layout of your facility that reduce the risk factors of awkward posture, high force, and long duration/high frequency”.  By providing a low risk workplace you will recognize ROI through injury prevention, decreased training time, decreased time spent by supervisors correcting unsafe behaviors, eliminate spending money on PPE and back belts, cost of additional breaks, and cost of retraining people to perform other jobs (rotation) to name a few.

Facilities Managers play an important role in improving workplace ergonomics

Submitted by Walt Rostykus, B.S., MSPH, CIH, CSP, CPE

The article titled “ Safety Pays” caught  my eye in the May edition of Today’s Facility Manager magazine.  It is comforting to know that facility managers are engaged with and know that they can impact safety in the workplace.  But as I read the article I realized the need for these and other managers to be up to date and current on effective and valid safety practices.

I encourage you to read the article yourself.  Two themes really caught my attention:  the dependence on injury data and cost as a true measure of ROI, and the lack of engineering approach to address ergonomic issues.

Injury/illness loss data (rates) and trends are a good way of tracking past performance.  Unfortunately they are a measure of consequences which does not allow one to anticipate and prevent injuries and losses from happening.  A better and effective metric for reducing losses (and costs) is to manage the level of risk.  Workplace risks (hazard + exposure) are measured every day.  For example, noise levels (dosimetry) results are compared with the OSHA standard; samples of respirable dusts, vapors, and airborne chemicals are measured and compared to thresholds established by the ACGIH and OSHA; ergonomic risk factors are measured and compared to the limitations of human performance with the NIOSH Lifting Equation, BRIEF, and REBA.  These three ergonomic assessment methods measure exposure to the three primary risk factors for WMSDs: awkward posture, high force, and duration/frequency (time).  The lessons for Facilities Managers is “Measure the impact of the work environment you manage based on risk, not consequences”.  It is the only way you’ll get ahead of the curve, from reaction to preventive.

Watch for an upcoming post about the lack of engineering approach...

A Course Change for OSHA…

  

Submitted by Josh Kerst

I just returned from the 25th Annual National Voluntary Protection Programs Participants’ Association Inc. (VPPPA) conference in San Antonio last week and it is clear that the pendulum of direction at OSHA is changing rapidly.  In the opening session, Acting Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, Jordan Barab talked about the current challenges OSHA faces and the changes that are forthcoming.  The message was very clear that OSHA’s role in the near future will emphasize increased inspections and more aggressive enforcement rather than relying on cooperative programs such as the VPP.   Barab indicated that nearly 200 new federal OSHA inspectors will be brought on staff and that assessed fines and penalties will be higher in the future.  Indications are that the administration will also attempt to get legislation passed criminalizing managers whose employees are killed or seriously injured, making them felons subject to imprisonment.

Barab’s comments come on the heels of a report released by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) last spring that takes issue with OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program.  The report questions OSHA and Regional VPP staff’s ability to verify that internal controls are sufficiently robust to ensure that only qualified worksites participate in the VPP.   The report further states that “OSHA has not developed the proper goals or measures to assess the performance of VPP”.  OSHA seems to have adopted the old British Navy adage which says “People tend to respect what they expect you will inspect”.

A follow-up VPPPA panel session given by four of OSHA’s Directorate personnel announced that OSHA will begin conducting a comprehensive evaluation of VPP safety and health systems beginning as early as September.  These reviews will seek to verify if proper oversight and controls are in place and that appropriate follow-up actions are taken in response to incidents, such as fatalities and serious injuries, at VPP sites.  The panel indicated that OSHA would check to see if VPP companies are “cooking the books” and if so appropriate actions will be taken with regards to the VPP program in response to recommendations made in the GAO report.

The American Agriculturist & Ergonomics?

Don't ask me how, but we found a relevant article worth posting from the American Agriculturist website.

The article describes the new John Deere CommandView II Cab as an exercise in ergonomics, where virtual reality tools were put to work on a wide range of design issues.

The new 8R and 8RT series features a redesigned console that swivels with the seat, as well as its own computer information screen for tractor monitoring.  According to the article, the base- model starts at around $165,929.

We didn't appreciate the sting about the cup holders though.

Comments?