NOTE: This document is provided for historical purposes only.
Presentation by Sandy Le Sage, Hay and Forage Industries
DR. JOSEPH: Okay. There will be time also at the end for questions. As more come up, please stay on and ask. These are good questions for clarifications. We need to do that. But I will tell you a quick story about this ideal weight that came up at Ford.
I got a call one time from an engineer. He asked me a very quick question. He said, "Can you tell me the weight this package should be?" And this was one of my first days on the job, and I said, "Well, it depends," just like Larry said here. And I said -- he goes, "Well, what does it depend on?" I started asking him three or four questions, size, frequency of the lift, and all these kinds of questions.
He says, "You know, that's the trouble with you Ph.D’s and all you ergonomists, you don't have a quick answer. I just want a quick answer." And he says, "This is ridiculous."
So I said, "Okay. Let me ask you a question." I said, "When is your machine going to break down?" He says, "Well, that depends." I said, "And what does it depend on?"
He says, "It depends on how often you run it, how well you maintain it." I said, "Well, how come it's okay for you to have that data and us not to have the same kind of data and answer the same kind of questions?"
He says, "Okay. Point well taken."
So the point of it is, we need data like this. And, you know, there isn't easy answers. There are maximums that we could all probably agree on that says, you know, like no one should ever lift 1,000 pounds. We could start there and go down. But there is even some controversy on this weight with some of the service sector for box delivery. So as you get further and further down that line to the left side down to zero, boy, people start getting real crazy about it. So it is a very difficult question, but it is a good question.
Our next speaker is Sandy Le Sage. Sandy has a very diverse background, too. She comes from Kansas as a certified emergency medical technician and a medical safety technician. She has been in occupational medicine and safety for nine years, and two-and-a-half years at -- I know I am going to kill this one -- Monfort Meat Packing Company as medical manager.
Now she is currently working at Hay and Forage Industries as the medical safety department and chairperson of the ergonomics peer team. Instead of calling it an ergonomics process team, they call it a peer team. So you are going to hear a lot of different terms for the same thing.
She is here to present some of her success stories, and I think she has a real interesting presentation, a little bit different than just a slide show. So please welcome Sandy.
MS. LE SAGE: Thank you, Brad. I would like to start today by telling you just a little bit about Hay and Forage Industries. We manufacture farm equipment, employ approximately 950 people, and we are located in Heston, Kansas. Hay and Forage is owned equally by two competitors, Agco Corporation and Case Corporation. Both are major manufacturers and distributors of farm equipment worldwide.
HFI started its ergonomics program in 1990. And in 1993 we hired Dr. Jeff Fernandez, an ergonomist with Wichita State University, to enhance our training and advance our ergonomics program. The video we are presenting today was produced under the direction of Dr. Fernandez. We chose to show our video today so that instead of me telling you about our program, you will be able to hear it straight from our employees.
If we could start the video.
(A videotape was then shown.)
MS. LE SAGE: We believe that we have a very successful ergonomics program. And some of the keys to our success first of all would be management support. If you don't have the support of your line supervisors, your production foremen or your general manager, your ergonomics program is not going to be as effective as it could be.
Second would be training for all employees. If your employees don't understand the ideas or the concepts behind ergonomics, they aren't going to be as willing to participate, which brings me to employee involvement. Your production workers out on the line know their job better than anybody at your facility, and they're the ones who are going to give you some of your best ideas on how to correct their work area.
That concludes my presentation. I will turn it over toBrad. Thank you.
DR. JOSEPH: Do you have any quick questions? We have time for about one. But we will still have time at the end, so --
We have a question. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
MS. : Did either of your companies find any value in using employee symptom surveys or employee questionnaires?
MS. LE SAGE: Yes. That's one of the first steps that we do when we do a job analysis. If somebody has a problem in their work area, a lot of times somebody will be having -- they will spot a problem in their area, and they might not be having any physical symptoms. Sometimes they are -- it depends, but yes, we find those very, very useful.
