NOTE: This document is provided for historical purposes only.
Presentation by Donald E. Day, Ergonomics Consultant
DR. RODGERS: Don Day is our first speaker. Don has a masters degree in kinesiology from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is an exercise physiologist by background, and an athletic trainer.
I met him in 1974 at the American College of Sports Medicine meetings when we did a session that Don Chaffin chaired on ergonomics for exercise physiologists. He worked at the Kodak Colorado Division Plant and became the chief ergonomist there before he left, with some prodding from me, to come out and help to do consulting around the world. He consults with a lot of small, medium, and large companies. Basically, he builds programs and processes for ergonomics in the workplace.
MR. DAY: Thank you all for coming. There are more and more people filing in. There are some seats up here if you all want to come up.
Basically what I would like to do today is to give you a brief rundown on an example case study of an assembly plant. We will be actually showing you the analysis process that they use, and then show you some of the actual data that they have collected in terms of cost savings and some of the other things that are associated with that.
For those of you that have been in this for a while, you know that there are citations that do go on. This one is associated with the work at Samsonite, where they build luggage. And, also, just to let you know, we do have a couple of the people from Samsonite that are here from the Ergonomics Group. There were actually four engineers at one time. Right now there is one. One is on special assignment. They are Loyce Malleck and Tim Fegle. We also have a representative from the medical management effort here. The physician, Mark Frank MD, associated with that is here as well. So both of those fellows, Loyce and Mark, are here to answer some questions if you all are interested.
I wanted to recognize the Local 724 United Steel Workers. Al Bray is the President of that group, and he is very integral in terms of the overall process as well.
The citation occurred in '91. There were 100 medical record keeping violations and 250 ergonomic citations were videotaped. The method of analysis in risk factor recognition, that they utilized was primarily with respect to recognition, and the abatements were based upon those that they saw. All operations that could possibly cause CTD were analyzed, which when you think about an assembly plant, that essentially is all operations.
So with that in mind, Samsonite did have a bit of a concern because there were something on the order of 2,500 total operations that they were going to have to analyze. Although, when they actually came down to grouping them, there were about 450. They prioritized their operations based upon lost time and the citation associated with the fine. Ergonomic engineers were selected from personnel within the plant.
In terms of the overall program there was a culture change. It has taken several years. Samsonite is actually in the fourth year of their program now. It is a combination of human resources, operations, union employees, and environmental health and safety, which medical management is part of. We will talk about these groups more specifically.
When you talk to these individuals at Samsonite, they will say that ergonomics is an integral part of all of their efforts. All groups need to be considered during development and maintenance of the ergonomics effort.
The medical management effort is an integral part of the history at Samsonite. Stemming from an OSHA citation back in 1982, Samsonite employed emergency room doctors to actually run their occupational clinic. Emergency room doctors tend to treat things differently than occupational doctors. So we "blew up" the medical department and replaced that with an occupational doctor, Mark Frank, MD.
A couple of things that he does that is very nice in terms of the overall program, Medical Management does an ergonomics review of every CTD case that occurs. There is also a physical job demand (PSD) analysis, which is a very short, method of looking at the jobs in such terms that it also fits their Samsonite ADA requirements. The physical job demands are actually matched against the return-to-work program for injured or ill employees.
The transitional work program (TWP) actually uses one of the ergonomics engineers to supervise the employees that are coming back to work. The ergonomic engineer actually helps place them into a job that fits their restrictions and makes sure that things work smoothly. There is a great deal of cross-referencing back and forth from the medical group and the ergonomics group.
There are several things that I tend to take a look at within a company. First, we do have to have the management commitment and support. Well, this was sort of a foregone conclusion for Samsonite. You had to have that based on the OSHA citations. The other is a structure that is reliable and works well within the company. You have to be very flexible in terms of the company that you work with.
Samsonite has an Ergonomics Council, which is comprised of ergonomics engineers, management, medical, HR as well as the union. The coordinator was an ergonomic engineer. The Ergonomics Group didn't have teams that they were working with, but they partnered with the people actually doing the work. The consultant, me, made up the third corner. This is structure. So the "structure" becomes a very important issue when you consider the ways the company runs their ergonomics program.
By the way, over on the TV monitor you can see some of the actual work that they do. This is a case assembly. There are several operations involved within case assembly. This is representative of the types of jobs that the employees do.
These are the results of the program. This is the CTD incident rate. All CTD's. In February of '92, the CTD rate, was running around 40-plus. This is a six-month rolling average, every month the previous six months are averaged. At this point in time the program began, in terms of signing the OSHA agreement. This is then followed by a decrease in the rate. In August of '93, Samsonite blew up the medical department and got Mark Frank an occupational physician in. There is a continued drop in the rate from 40 down to 6 or 7.
The ergonomic workplace analysis process becomes important to think about, because there's several things that it does. It focuses what the individuals doing the analysis look at, as Sue talked about. It also helps the leadership become more aware of how you are looking at ergonomic issues. They need to be able to believe in it, it needs to be simple, flexible for other needs as well.
I like to see a problem-solving base and analysis process. If you do bring in experts, they do need to work with the employees so that they are actually on the floor. It needs to include the "science", and the employees must be involved as well.
Now, the ergonomics analysis flow process looks something like this: A problem: quality, error, complaint injury or CTD has to occur. In this case it was the CTD problems associated with what OSHA was citing Samsonite for. That problem is given to the "team" or the analysis group. The team collects data and there is a measurement process. The "team" then completes the Job Fatigue Analysis. The next step is problem solving with a reality check, where they go back to employee to verify what they found. You will see more about this. There is a cost benefit step as well with this. The control is then implemented. Re-evaluation occurs. There's an overall case study as well. This is given to the ergonomics coordinator. And finally there's a follow-up process.
This process had to be sent back to the national OSHA group to take a look at before it was accepted as the methodology that Samsonite was going to use to be looking at their work stations.
It is flexible in that once you get into the actual problems, there are several ways you can look at it in terms of safety, quality, lifting and lowering-material handling types of situations, as well as the repetitive processes.
Now what I would like to do is introduce you to an alternative way of looking at the workplace. This is the analysis process that I use that Dr. Rodgers developed in '87.
You will have the references with the material to be compiled. These forms follow the flow process that you saw. The job that you are going to be viewing on the monitor is taken from another site. It is an assembly process. The employees are assembling a gas range. So what you will see is an individual who is doing a particular operation. The operation is to attach the outside gas line to the inside gas line. The employee bends into the range, putting on a fixture in the back of the range, fixing that in place, running the nut runner down to make the connection. And then they come out, do a suboperation, and go to the next one.
There are a couple of different forms that go before this one. One of the things that we always ask is, what is the process of looking at these jobs? Typically, the typical risk factors: force, duration and repetition are identified. Recovery is sometimes looked at, but these are the big three.
From an exercise physiologist's standpoint, I tend to think 1) the intensity of "how hard" the person might be exercising, 2) the duration that the person is exercising for and 3) the actual frequency of bouts or exercise sessions. From an ergonomics standpoint, that makes sense if you think about the percent of effort that that person is working at compared to their maximal capabilities. We also look at the continuous time that the muscle is actually contracted. And then you look at the efforts per minute. Does everybody follow that.
So duration is not duration over the long haul in terms of the day, but the actual time the muscle contracts. Now, you do have to overlay the actual time that the person is doing this operation over the day as well.
This is the Job Fatigue Analysis form that we use for analyzing repetitive work. And, again, this is in some of the references that Dr. Rodgers has written. On this side of the form the body parts are located: the neck, shoulders, back, arms and elbows, wrists, hands and fingers, legs, knees, ankle, feet and toes. So it pretty much covers the entire body.
When we view a job we take a look at the effort level, continuous effort time, efforts per minute. This assumes that we are looking at an operation that has a one three-second effort within a five-minute time frame, by the way.
So now we need to consider how to determine the effort category. Well, the way that you do that is you tend to break that out into categories. Dr. Rodgers uses the psychophysical rating. Now, this makes sense to me because exercise physiologists have used psychophysical ratings for years. This method can be used for analyzing work.
What you need to be able to recognize is that the response is not linear. Secondly, it needs to be anchored. And the way you anchor this is to determine what the maximum level would be. So in terms of getting this information from the employee that is actually doing the job, you would ask them when they are doing the job to imagine a maximum effort to complete that particular test operation. Or to actually do the operation with a maximum effort.
Well, maximum is the point where you are going to "throw up". Everybody understands "throw up". You have to use those graphic terminologies. So once they understand, if they are putting a driver in place, or performing some task they need to envision a "maximum effort". Then we back off of maximum and describe what it actually feels like based upon the descriptions on the side of the form. This has been done by Borg (1982)over in Sweden.
What Dr. Rodgers has done here is broken it down into light effort, moderate effort, and heavy effort; approximately based upon a 30 percent level or less for light, 70 percent and 40-60 percent or in between for moderate. Now, again, that makes sense from an exercise physiologist standpoint as well.
So if we, again looking at this task, go down and start thinking about the effort level associated with this -- and I am going to kind of roll these off so we can get done with this in a hurry -- the effort level for the neck, where do you see this? When she is actually bending inside the range. So what would be the effort level? Well, it's not light. It's not maximum, but it is probably a 2. Make sense? Okay.
Then we have the shoulders. Again, looking at the effort level associated with this task, outstretched, probably a 2 holding the driver in place. For the right, 2 as well. For the back -- anybody got any guesses? What does it look like? At least a 2 for sure. And there's a possibility that some people, especially if they have some problems, may think that the effort level could be more of a 3 with this task.
Arms and elbows, in terms of the effort level associated with doing this job, probably a 2, but it might be on the lighter side of the 2. Again, as you start taking a look at the 10-point scale, dropping down into the lower 2 categories.
Wrist, hands and fingers, actually holding the driver in place and running the nut down. Again, because we can't really see what is going on, there's probably deviation involved and those types of tasks. Probably again 2s, at least for this task. And if you think about some of the deviations, depending upon positions they get in, it may be higher than a 2.
Legs and knees associated with this task, it is not just standing, it is leaning forward, so there is some effort associated with this task. Again, it is probably 2 or maybe on the lower end of a 2.
The ankle, feet and toes, probably a 1 associated with this task. The continuous effort time is broken down in less than 6 seconds, given a 1; 6-20 seconds, a 2; and 20 seconds and greater a 3. Continuous effort time associated with this task is about 18 seconds inside. Every 35 seconds you have a cycle, so there are 2 ranges that go by per minute.
So with that in mind, 18 seconds would be a 2. Therefore the neck and shoulders are a 2; the back would be a 2. The back would be a 2. Arms and elbows, again they are probably a little bit less than 18 seconds, but probably still a 2 associated with this task. Wrist, hands and fingers, probably a lot shorter incremental movements associated with this task, so we are talking probably about a 1 in those cases. And in terms of the legs, again in that 18-second time frame, a 2. Ankle, feet and toes are actually standing for the entire time frame, is 3.
Now we determine the efforts per minute. Less than 1 effort per minute is given a 1; 1 to 5 efforts per minute is given a 2; and greater than 5 efforts per minute up to 15, is given a 3.
So therefore efforts per minute categories are as follows: 2 for the neck, 2 for the shoulders, and 2 for the back as well as legs. Considering the arms and elbows and the wrist, hands and fingers there are more efforts per minute for this task. For the ankles, feet and toes the efforts per minute are less than one or a 1 category.
The next step is to consider the combination of these categories, for example a 222, 232, or 322 and determine the priority for change. The categories for the priority for change are high priority, and very high. These categories represent the magnitude of potential fatigue associated with this task.
The resulting priority for change categories are 222 for the neck. Moderate priority for both shoulders. A 322 would be high priority for the back. Moderate priority for the arms and elbows. 213 is a moderate priority for the wrists, hands, and fingers. 222 is a moderate priority for the legs and knees. And for the ankle, feet and toes the priority for change is a 131.
Now, we take this to the next form. I will show that to you very quickly. This form represents the problem-solving analysis step associated with this task. The body parts that were prioritized as moderate, high or very high are taken from the Job Fatigue Analysis form. Initially, list those body parts on the form. Then list the risk factors associated with that body part. Then list the contributing factors or root causes associated with that risk factor. Finally generate or list the suggested strategies of alternatives for rechecking the risk factor.
Observing the job on the monitor the risk factors include: bending the back, reaching out for the shoulders, extending the neck. There is also leaning forward for the legs, and probably deviations for the wrist, hands and fingers.
The contributing factors or root causes to this, for these risk factors will be identified next. Upon further observation, discussing the risk factors and continuing to ask the question ‘why', the root cause is identified as the fact that the employee is actually assembling this part in an enclosed environment. Concentrate on that as being the root cause, then one of the possible solutions, and the best solution, the team actually arrived at was to actually make this a sub-assembly step off line prior to assembly. Here you can see the actual solution. We took the process off line then, put it on line here. The ergonomics team actually did this with the assembly group. You can see that they take the back of the range, place it on this fixture. By the way, it costs $45. They then put the outside gas line in place and run the nut down while it is in this position.
This job prior to this fix resulted in four open back cases. There was about $200,000 of workers' comp, dollars associated with this task. It was also hard to keep people in this job, because they didn't like to be in this job. In terms of quality problems, there were gas leaks that occurred at this fixture. Customers don't like to find gas leaks, for obvious reasons. So that was actually part of that that they rolled into the overall cost of this analysis and fix.
Hopefully you can see that by utilizing this process we are able to, in a short time period, focus on the job, the body parts and the risk factors associated with it. More than that, actually coming up with what the contributing factors are and being clear as to the root cause, and then actually coming up with a feasible cost effective solution.
By using a sound problem solving analysis process a company can have an effective ergonomics process. These are some of the costs associated with the ergonomics process at Samsonite. Again, light assembly, 640 employees, and kind of a small plant. The ergonomics process costs $2,500,000, cumulative total (91-96). There were some things in there that probably weren't necessarily ergonomic fixes. There also was some redirection of my time. Productivity and quality issues weren't because they didn't have a real good process to do that. So the actual cost for the ergonomics process for Samsonite was just short of $2 million for about 5½ years.
DR. RODGERS: Don, thank you very much. We appreciate you sharing that with us.
It is awfully hard to tell everybody everything you want to tell them in 15 or 20 minutes.
