1. No Plan – a lack of clearly defined goals, responsibilities, expectations, and process
2. No Sponsorship – a lack of drive from the top down
3. Insufficient Resources – no committed resources to support the process (e.g., people, funding, time)
4. No Succession Plan – changes in leadership happen, and key participants may leave. If there is no succession plan, the process will fizzle.
5. No Goals – a lack of common goals for improvement understood across the facility (e.g., metrics, accountability, time frames, activities)
6. No impetus – most programs start strong, but can lose momentum without strong drivers (e.g., sponsors, goals, plans)
7. Priority Change – over time, management and business drivers change, and ergonomics may lose importance especially if reductions in injuries are achieved year to year
8. Lack of Visibility – results and progress are not communicated to employees and management
9. No Perceived Value – the team does not demonstrate value and contribute to the bottom line and business drivers
10. No Accountability – no one is held accountable for success (or failure) of the process

For further reading on this topic and ways to improve your ergonomics process, download our free e-book, Five Mistakes Companies Make with Ergonomics. Also check out our new live seminar, Managing an Ergonomics Process, hosted by Walt Rostykus in April and June at Humantech’s corporate office.

Froetscher outlined four key things that successful companies should focus on when creating a safe place to work.

1. Leadership and Employee Engagement – Safety must be demonstrated by strong, consistent, visionary leadership, and keeping employees engaged. The NSC organization requires its employees to complete safety satisfaction surveys which captures their opinions of their management team, safety culture, and such.
2. Implementation of a Safety Management System – This  framework ensures an organization can fulfill all safety tasks required to achieve its objectives. OSHA believes if we put this system in all organizations, up to $20 million could be saved in workers compensation claims.
3. Risk Reduction – Companies that take the initiative to reduce risk outperform those that do not. One of the most common causes of workplace injuries is motor vehicle crashes. It is estimated that 1 in 5 Fortune 500  companies have initiated cell phone policies as a result.
4. Measurement – Measurement provides  data on activities to continuously improve. Without data, the statistics to determine risk would not be available. It has been found that employees are 9 times more likely to be injured when the workday ends. The safety skills and training provided from organizations tend to transfer to the home. As a result, corporate training programs, classes, and sessions save lives.

Ergonomics team (committee) training is often the starting point for an organization’s ergonomics initiative. Follow these tips to ensure that you are setting your ergo team up for success.

1. Before you train, define the responsibilities.
   Good training provides the information people are looking for—great training gives them skills to fulfill their job responsibilities. Be sure to identify the specific outputs you want from the ergo team so you can direct the training to skills they will need. Are team members expected to only identify ergonomics challenges or do you expect them to put in place cost-effective solutions? Do team members need to train others in ergonomics awareness, provide engineers with design guidelines, or investigate recordable MSDs? Each of these activities requires a different skill set that should be reflected in the training program.
2. Provide simple approaches to complex problems.
   Information on ergonomics can be difficult to apply given the intricacy of understanding human capabilities, the range of possible solutions, and the challenges of change management. To achieve genuine skill building, as opposed to diffused awareness, your training programs must focus on simple concepts in which participants can quickly gain competence.
3. Provide easy-to-use methods.
   Ergonomics assessment methods can take 10 minutes to 10 days per job. Select evaluation techniques that are easy to learn and easy to use. Remember, your ergo team members are not on a journey to become professional ergonomists. They need tools and techniques to help them identify and resolve challenges, not data-rich analysis techniques that confuse rather than clarify. 
4. Verify learning with hands-on activities.
   As adults, we place far greater significance on our past experiences rather than on the advice of others. Hands-on learning improves understanding and increases retention and it keeps people mentally engaged in the topic. Be sure to include plenty of hands-on exercises and case studies so that participants can practice what they are expected to apply after the training program is over.

Last week, I was delivering a training program in Luxembourg and Germany and was exposed to something new—interpreters to assist me with getting the message of ergonomics to almost 40 industrial engineers.  We have delivered a lot of training courses outside of North America, where language can sometimes be a barrier, but we have only taught individuals who understand English or have used translators.

The difference between a translator and an interpreter is that a translator repeats the trainer after every thought causing the trainer to stop and wait. (As you can imagine, it extends the length of the training significantly.)  However, interpreters use a microphone system and attendees are equipped with headsets. The interpreters are trained to speak while the trainer is speaking. You would think it would be distracting, but it wasn’t, and the training content did not suffer nor did the time. The impact on the quality and speed of the training was huge!

I can’t say enough about how much of an impact this system had on the class (even some of my jokes landed this time!)

An excellent article came out today from Pharmaceutical Processing that demonstrates how better and more potent medicine manufacturing can be assisted by ergonomic facility design and layouts. Roche has made a significant commitment to develop potent compounds (a relatively new class of drugs that has many uses) but the major roadblock in developing these drugs is that, as the name implies, their potency can be highly hazardous to both humans and the environment.  As part of their commitment to producing potent compounds, Roche recently opened up a new, state-of-the-art clinical supply manufacturing facility on its campus in Nutley, New Jersey.  The entire facility, including the essential chemical isolator stations (see article) , was designed with the operator’s ergonomic needs in mind.  Roche understands that ergonomic design is a vital part of ensuring safety and efficiency within the manufacturing process.

Pharmaceutical companies rely on a strong pipeline of medicine if they are going to compete in a world market and as Waseem Malick, PhD, Roche Vice President, Pharmaceutical & Analytical R&D states, “Pipelines are driven by science. We go where the science leads us; which is why we have to have a facility ready to handle whatever comes our way. We have to make sure what comes in here we can develop from clinical trials through manufacturing.”

Clearly,  the advantage will go to those forward thinking companies who link flexible, efficient and ergonomic  design concepts.  Read the whole PharmPro article.

There was a great turnout at the National Safety Council Congress and Expo in Philadelphia.  In this year’s “Pursuit for Continuous Improvement,” there were over 8,000 attendees, 120 technical speakers and 600,000 square feet worth of exhibits.  One of this year’s top themes was online safety management systems.  The most impressive system on display was NSC’s own NSC Navigator powered by iCertainty.  Companies such as Walt Disney and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority shared their experiences with the system in a well-attended panel-led discussion.  This appears to be the direction the world of health and safety is going in terms of data management.

Did you attend the Congress and Expo this year? Tell us what you think!

However, preparing yourself and your workspace before you actually perform your lift is just as important. Here are a few things to keep in mind when preparing for a lift:

• Plan your route. Clear any potential slip or trip hazards from the area. If you are going to be carrying the load through a doorway, prop the door open beforehand to avoid awkward postures when you reach that doorway with your load.
• Get an idea of how heavy the load is before picking it up. If it’s a box, examine the contents. If it is sealed, nudge it with your foot or knee to get an idea of how heavy it is. This will allow you to properly brace yourself and avoid any additional surprise exertions on your joints. If you think the load is too heavy, ask for help.
• Do not attempt to lift overloaded or damaged boxes. If you get the feeling that the box you are about to lift isn’t going to be sturdy enough, you are probably right. If the box breaks while you are lifting it, the result could be unexpected loads on your body, which may cause injury.
• Use gravity to your advantage. Whenever possible, load from higher positions to lower positions. Minimize vertical travel distance by placing carts directly below shelving units and load boxes onto other boxes that are already on the cart

Planning your strategy before and during material handling will save you (and your back) from unplanned events that could potentially result in an injury. So be smart, don’t rush, and lift safely!

Recently, I delivered a webinar titled, “Fad vs. Fact: Ergonomic Solutions” and one of the most popular topics questioned was the use of Swiss Ball Seating in the office compared to the traditional office chair.  This topic has beckoned answers from researchers for several years. The article titled, The Use of Stability Balls in the Workplace in Place of the Standard Office Chair, from CRE-MSD (Centre of Research Expertise for the Prevention of Musculoskeletal Disorders) just crossed my desk.  The authors conclude that stability balls should not be used as an alternative to the standard office chair since it does not provide any inherent benefits to the end user.  Additionally, they state, “The use of stability balls as a chair may actually increase the risk of developing low back discomfort and may increase the risk of sustaining an injury due to the unstable nature of the balls.” 

This research paper / article is a valuable supplement to the information my colleague and I presented in our webinar.  Please feel free to share your feedback or comments about your use of Swiss Ball Seating.  We would love to hear from you!

Demonstrating the value of your ergonomics initiative, and calculating the return on investment (ROI) for specific engineering improvements are common requests for many safety professionals these days.  Unfortunately, many of us struggle to even begin to justify improvements, let alone choose a meaningful calculator to demonstrate the benefits of improving workplace conditions.  A quick Google search identifies some available calculators: Equipois Return on Investment (ROI) Calculator and
Cornell University Return on Investment (ROI) Estimator are a couple of them.

Common among these calculators is that they are based on traditional, lagging indicators – such as injury and illness cost avoidance.  When using such calculators, you  hope your improvement will eliminate or reduce future injury and illness cost.  As I have heard many times – hope is not a strategy.  What happens if your improvement does not reduce future injuries and illnesses?  Typically, bad things for your career. Is there a better way?  Yes.  An effective ROI calculator needs to be based on meaningful business metrics, or leading ergonomic indicators, such as ergonomic risk reduction and/or increases in productivity.   Calculators that do this include Washington State Ergonomics Cost Benefit Calculator and Humantech’s cost justification worksheet.

Hopefully, in the near future, we can attain the “Holy Grail” of ergonomics return-on-investment calculators.  These calculators would include all of the above mentioned indicators, as well as inputs for enhancements in product quality (i.e., reduction in product defect, material scrap, warranty claims, etc.), as well as more detailed ergonomic risk reduction inputs and more sophisticated epidemiological data.  Luckily for us, some of the best and brightest researchers and practitioners are working on such models.  Stay tuned.

Recently, I returned to a pharmaceutical facility in the United Kingdom having not visited for a year.  It was very interesting to see what had changed.  They had made significant ergonomic improvements and were able to include ergonomics in the budget for 2011, so much had been accomplished.  They have started an ergonomics team with representation from all departments.  Team members include operators, engineers, maintenance, and health and safety.  This allows the people who do the jobs to be directly involved with fixing them!! Although they still have a long way to go, it is impressive to see this shift in just a year.  Do you have any stories you’d like to share about improving your site’s ergonomics process?