NOTE: This document is provided for historical purposes only.
Presentation by Lida Orta-Anes, International UAW
MS. GRAHAM: Now, I would like to introduce Lida Orta-Anes. Lida is the ergonomist for the International United Auto workers. She is a member of the United Auto Workers Local 1981. She is also a member of ANSI 2-365 Committee, and she graduated from the University of Michigan. Let's welcome Lida.
DR. ORTA-ANES: Thank you. Ms. Estill is going to distribute copies of my presentation so it will be easier for you to follow my accent. I also have a cold. So I am hoping that you will be able to endure this challenge.
Ample involvement has been identified as a critical component of any type of ergonomic process, and it is very surprising and amazing for me to visit the facilities that we represent and to find out that we need to struggle and we need to sometimes fight for any type of employee involvement or employee representation in the ergonomics committees. I have been working with ergonomics for 10 years now, and it is still frustrating to find out individuals that believe that they can carry out an ergonomic agenda just by themselves. My presentation will present data justifying, especially after a year and a half, if I cannot measure it doesn't assist the nonsense that has been carried out in the organization and come out of the closet with this thought and hopefully ---
I tried to validate from my humble perspective an ergonomic program, and I am going to share with you a case study that we established in two manufacturing plants. The study addressed several research questions. The first to measure whether in fact employee participation is an important part of an ergonomic process. The second question is geared to identify if in fact participation is an important component of the process and how pervasive it is. So in order to research those questions, first we tried to determine whether employees participating in the decision actually had a more productive attitude towards the ergonomics change. This was an issue that has been evaluated by the literature to some degree. Thirdly, we also wanted to identify whether the employees' perception of soreness was affected by their participation in the decision making process. This is a variable that has not been evaluated as such or as much. This was an important relationship to establish. Lastly, we also wanted to compare the rates of rejection, how many of the employees actually declined to use the ergonomic improvement because they did not participate in the decision making process. So those are the four objectives that we had outlined of this case study.
Our first step was to identify manufacturing plants that were producing the same type of product. One group we labeled a participating group. The other group we labeled as non-participatory. Both plants had collective bargaining agreements. We represented both of them, and we were able to administer questionnaires before we intervened with them and after intervention. So we had a nice before and after measurement of our intervention.
We evaluated the process for two years in a row. We had a small sample size for the participating employees working in jobs that were being changed by the ergonomic committee, and a bigger control sample that helped us confirm that the changes that we were observing were due to our intervention and not to other types of issues.
That process that we followed was the following. First we sat down with key representatives from the company, as well as from the local union. We asked them to outline an action plan, including what things they were expecting to see out of the ergonomic process, what type of things they were expecting to accomplish. So we have a nice action plan that was developed by key representatives of these facilities. We trained everybody in the facility so we gave everybody a little feel for what ergonomics was about, and we went through the selection of the task force members.
This issue turned out to be a critical issue in the whole study, and I am going to discussthe structure of those groups in a minute. The three other steps that we followed, the union and management sat down and approved the type of evaluation methods they were going to use. We also established an ergonomics problem solving process to make sure there were a number of common steps that they were going to do when they developed the different changes.
The composition of the task force, as I mentioned, ended up being an important part of it, and as you can see, we labeled NP, the non-participatory plant on one side, and the participatory plant on the other. The non-participatory plant is heavily leaning towards technical, as well as management functions. We had maintenance supervisors, tool engineers, industrial engineers, health and safety managers sitting on that task force, also, one UAW representative, and one health and safety representative. In the participatory plant, we have some of those technical functions too. We also have two shop stewards, and we have a permanent member in the task force that was from the shop floor. Every time a new job was being looked at and being evaluated, we invited the employee that performed that job to participate in the decision making and the task force. So we got vast employee participation in the group that we labeled the participatory plant.
These are some of the methods that we used and these are the standard methods that I have heard throughout this last two days that have been used in most of your facilities. We looked at the injury records, insurance records, and workers' compensation records. We interview and distribute symptom surveys so that we have direct information from the employee. Questions such as, Where does it hurt? How much does it hurt at the end of the day and whether they could relate that soreness to their job. In order to get that scientific measurement component into the study, we also looked at and used several of the available ergonomic computer models such as the two and three dimensional biomechanical models, posture analysis, and energy expenditure models. So we brought quantitative science and objectivity to the study this way.
The problem solving process that we looked at, first we looked at the injury records. We went over assigning and establishing a medical management process. Both facilities did have internal health assistance, but we went over recommending some additional aspects to the way the medical management process was being implemented. We established walk through inspections of the facilities. In the participatory facility, we also included employee recommendations for improvement, and we went on implementing these recommendations.
These are our measures for effectiveness. These are the variables that we identified that would allow us to determine, "yes, this has been an effective improvement, this has been an effective change". First, and we look at employee perception of soreness. If they have less pain after the change, we add a check mark and a little star saying this is one of the criteria we want to use to measure whether we have been successful. The second one is if there has been an objective reduction of exposure to the risk factors, as measured by the ergonomic models. The third one was if the person was willing to participate in the decision making process. The fourth criteria was the employees' perception about the improvement, specifically whether they adapted the improvement. We can make really good recommendations and people end up not using them.
The last criteria for effectiveness, and for us it was really important, was to determine how much time has passed since the time we made the recommendations to the time when the job was actually changed. Sometimes in some of the facilities there is a very big gap there, and by the time the company is ready to implement the change, it is no longer relevant. So we wanted to be able to use that variable as part of our performance criteria as well.
Among the findings of the study, we found out that in both groups, both the participatory as well as the non-participatory groups, everybody wanted more participation than what they had. A higher percentage of employees in the participatory group expressed that they had more information and a better understanding of what ergonomics was about. This was mainly due to the fact that committee members went off and encouraged and gave more information about ergonomics. When people were taken off the line for the pre-interview, they were able to go back and explain to their fellow workers and what was going on, what was going on with their jobs. So we have a bigger and wider dissemination network that way.
We also found out a higher percentage of employees have a positive attitude about ergonomics in the participatory group than in the non-participatory group. Employees at the participatory plant reported a significant reduction in the degree of soreness perceived after their job was improved. In the non-participatory plant, on the other hand, we found an increase in reports of perceived degree of soreness. The employees at the participatory plant showed a two percent resistance to change, and in the non-participatory plant we observed a 23 percent resistance to change. More people rejected the changes in the plant where we didn't have any direct participation.
Interesting enough, we don't think it was just for psychological reasons. Resistance to change, we also believe that is a very direct consequence of solutions that do not relate or conform to the ways the employee performs the job. At the nonparticipatory facility, we had a skilled task force with a lot of technical people that made wonderful recommendations. Unfortunately, those recommendations deviated from the way the employee believed that job should be performed. So we will argue that part of the resistance to change was due to design incompatibilities between the improvement recommended and employee's.
All of this information moves us into the recommendations of what type of components should be present in a successful ergonomic program, and again, these are working templates. The size of your organization, the culture of your organization will determine whether, in fact, you can apply it, but I will argue that the time you take up front to develop each of those components will be likely to be a good trade off in the long run, in terms of how long and how effective you can be with your ergonomic improvement process.
First we need to have our leadership support, and I am talking about in this case, in union represented facilities, support from the union as well as from the management of that facility. Next, these individuals need to be trained. They need to know what ergonomics is about so they can support it in the long term. Also, the selection of committee members is an important part. The task force, teams, or the committees need to be balanced. There should be equal representation from management and technical individuals as well as from direct shop floor people.
There needs to be some sort of a problem solving process established and you need to identify what is going to be the protocol that you are going to follow. There needs to be some surveillance methods. How are you going to get your information? What type of things are you going to use to get the information from the shop floor? That job analysis method needs to be identified and approved. They should be training in the implementation of those tools.
As important component and our panelists went through this, document, document, document. Documentation, we need to evaluate those improvements. We need to find out whether, in fact, we are creating new risk factors or whether individuals are adapting to the change as the change was intended to be used.
On our last point, financial support, you have seen here and you have heard throughout the presentation that ergonomics is not a program. It is not a project. It is an ongoing process, and it has to be established within the facilities as such. It has to become part of the way that you do your business. It has to be part of the standard performance criteria, along with quality, along with employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. It has to be at that level. That is my presentation. Thank you very much.
