NOTE: This document is provided for historical purposes only.
Hank Lick, Ford Motor Company
MS. TAYLOR: Our final speaker on the Welcome Panel is Dr. Henry Lick, who is currently manager of Ford Motor Company's industrial hygiene department. He has in excess of 30 years experience, 28 of those years with Ford, in occupational health, safety, and environmental issues.
Dr. Lick has corporate and divisional responsibilities for domestic and foreign operations for Ford. He was recently selected as Michigan's safety professional of the year for 1996 by the Michigan Safety Conference.
Please join me in welcoming Dr. Lick.
DR. LICK: Well, that's what happens when you accept the position of being the last speaker, a lot of your material gets used up, so you're going to hear some things that are repetitive, but Peg and I are here because we have a commitment to ergonomics.
We at NACOSH have looked at this issue and said, it's time for the rhetoric to stop, it's time for us to be health and safety professionals again. So if you wonder why Peg and I are here, we have a very strong commitment to get this thing moving again, get it off dead center.
I want to also extend my personal welcome and that of the Ford Motor Company and the other American automobile manufacturers to you, and also thank NIOSH and OSHA for putting this meeting together.
I must admit, I was a bit skeptical whether it could happen in such short notice and get it together, but obviously it's quite a success. It's really gratifying to see so many people here, imagine a thousand people to discuss best practices in ergonomics.
Well you've heard all the Chicago jokes already. This is Chicago in January, and we could have had 20 below and two feet of snow on the ground, but we didn't.
I thought that the auto companies were brave when we put together our ergonomics conference a couple years ago in Cleveland in February, and I thought I'd never live that one down. But NIOSH and OSHA have really gone one up on us in bravery.
They have really proven that people will go anywhere, anytime, to discuss ergonomics, and so we're here.
So, personally, I'm here because I'm committed to health and safety and ergonomics. It's a good thing to do. Likewise, Ford is committed to health and safety and ergonomics.
Moreover, one thing that needs to be realized is that health and safety and ergonomics are good for business. In fact, they are really good business.
As Linda has told you, many companies have been doing things in ergonomics for a long time. At Ford, we've been involved in ergonomics for at least the last 20 years. For the last 10 years, the UAW has been our partners in the Ford ergonomics process.
You'll hear about the UAW/Ford process over the next two days. That's only one story that you're going to hear about, though.
This is a conference about best practices in ergonomics, and you're going to hear several success stories. Hopefully, people will share them with you openly and honestly. People approach ergonomics in different ways, so there's different solutions. Therefore, it's really foolish to pretend that there's no debate around ergonomics. There is, especially when we talk about the science, how big the problem is, how to measure it, and how to fix it.
But whether you believe that ergonomics is 10 percent, 25 percent, or 60 percent of occupational injuries and illnesses, how you measure it doesn't really matter. What really matters is you can't walk away from ergonomics. It's an issue to be dealt with.
Peg quite eloquently has said that it is an issue in the workplace, so we really have to deal with this.
For the next two days you're going to be talking about essentially best practices. As Peg has mentioned, the time has come to debate, the time has come to get all of our issues on the table, and to resolve this, to talk about the science and the scope of the problem. So mark on your calendars June 17th through 20th, for that is the conference that will discuss what we would like to call the policy and the science issues relating to ergonomics. It's going to be in Cincinnati.
The primary sponsors for the symposium will be the American Automobile Manufacturers Association and the Center for Office Technology.
One of the things that perhaps you can understand that is changing in ergonomics is that all of the parties that have diverse opinions have been planning this symposium, and we will get out all of the issues. We will discuss them frankly, and we will come to some sort of conclusion as to where we should go.
There's a lot of folks, in addition to those that you'll come to know later. Pick up the blue flyer on the AIHA table just outside the door and you can get additional information on the symposium that's coming up.
Now, importantly, everywhere I go you talk to your colleagues and then say, well, my staff is being reduced, this is being reduced, business is doing this and that, business is getting leaner and meaner. There are getting to be less things to compete over. There's less that separates the successful company and the failure, except for the people. The people are the things that companies can really compete on.
I just want to say that ergonomics can give you a competitive advantage when you're talking about survival. People who are hurt, people who are in chronic pain, and people who are fatigued cannot deliver a quality product.
If they are not in these conditions, they can deliver an extremely quality product. Ergonomics can be a road to help people cooperate. It can be, as we found in Ford, a very good thing for getting the employees and the company management together and focus not only on the health and safety in the workforce but on other things that are of joint concerns for us.
I'd like to thank you all again for coming, and I hope that we have, and I'm sure that we will, a very successful and productive conference.
Thank you.
MS. TAYLOR: Thank you, Dr. Lick.
