NOTE: This document is provided for historical purposes only.
Ira Janowitz from UTILITIES
MR. LeGRANDE: Without further ado, I will introduce our first speaker who will present a summary of the Utilities workshop, that was chaired by Ira Janowitz at The University of California-San Francisco, Berkeley in the Ergonomics Program.
Ira.
MR. JANOWITZ: Thanks, David. I'll be showing some slides, it's kind of hard to capture what goes on in utilities without doing so. First I want to thank the participants in the Panel, Pam Deutsch from Puget Power and Light; Fran Devlin from The San Francisco Division of Pacific Gas and Electric; and Randy Nicholls from Montana Power Company. I'll be mixing in some slides from all of us.
While we're getting that settled, I should mention that I've had the pleasure of working with several utilities, and every time I take a drink of water, flip on an electric switch or flush a toilet, I thank the utility workers for doing their jobs.
Utility work requires very high physical demands, often exceeding the strength capabilities of 50 percent or even 95 percent of the male work force, and frequently exceeding the strength capabilities of 99 percent of the female work force. It involves work in awkward postures and all the usual ergonomics risk factors with which we're familiar; vibration, cold, and high force, for example.
Now this is a slide from the PG&E San Francisco Division program. The point here is that the focus in utilities has been primarily on avoiding acute injuries. We're talking about hazards, of course of electrocution and falls from great heights, confined spaces, et cetera. So there's a tradition among these, in these utilities of looking at acute injury and not the issues of cumulative trauma.
But rising cumulative trauma rates has attracted their attention. The San Francisco PG&E program includes the usual elements that we've all come to expect of a good ergonomics program: Ongoing surveillance, developing a plan for implementation of strategies and for the pilot testing of interventions, and for following up after implementation to see if these are having the intended effect.
Now in addition to these elements, Fran Devlin of PG&E is a nurse-practitioner who works on site at the San Francisco Division. So that this gives her the ability not only to look at the usual OSHA log 200 and worker's comp claims rates, but also to get into more detail regarding office visit records, to interview people who come into the clinic whether or not they filed a comp claim; to go on site more easily, and to take a first-hand look at ergonomics issues. So having an on-site nurse-practitioner has yielded much more information and much more familiarity on the part of clinical personnel with the ergonomics issues involved.
Now a point to keep in mind is that there are very different ergonomics problems between underground and overhead utility work. One of the questions that came up at the end of our panel (by Sue Rogers) was about the historical trend towards putting utilities underground. For instance, electric power distribution in many localities is being put underground instead of up on poles; how does that change the ergonomics issues? I thought this was a very good question, of course, because it reminds us that ergonomics is an ongoing process, and that as the means of production changes, we need to look at the new issues that come up.
So the panel agreed, basically, that we need to look at the differences between underground and overhead work. These are some of the issues that have been looked at in the PG&E San Francisco Division, for instance. In the case of underground work: looking at different cutters, looking at manhole lifts, crimpers, and further ergonomics awareness training. And in the case of overhead work, to look at saws and alternative wrenches and other alternative tools to reduce risk factors.
Here's an example of one of those; it's a way to pull off a grate that increases the mechanical advantage on the part of the person doing the work, and makes it easier for him. This is not always possible because the area around the access may not be paved or very easily accessible, but it certainly can help in many situations.
There's a tendency in utilities to think that "the problems are very industry-specific," or "it's always been done this way, we can't change anything"; but in fact we can change things.
This is a program overview of the Montana Power Company program, and one of the points made here is that it's being carried out in a partnership with Montana State University, Department of Industrial Engineering. Bob Marley is a professor there, and so Montana Power has developed a 3-point strategy in conjunction with the University, and that's proved to be a very productive relationship.
The 3-point strategy includes developing more internal expertise, increasing employee awareness, and conducting ongoing research and development. The internal ergonomics expertise has been developed by extensive training, which has been carried out to a great extent by staff from MSU and by internal people as well.
One of the things that came out of the panel is that, in the case of all three utilities, the ergonomics program is not being carried out through separate ergonomics committees, but rather through the existing safety committees. And we talked in some other sessions during these two days about the pros and cons of doing it that way. Right now in the utility industry, that seems to be the mode of action because many utilities are dispersed over wide geographic areas; if you're going to have a safety meeting, it makes sense to integrate ergonomics into that safety meeting, because you may be traveling quite a distance to set that up, and your employees may be traveling quite a distance to come to safety training.
One of the elements in the Puget Sound program is body mechanics training that's job and task specific. We all know the shortcomings of the usual body mechanics training; "bend your knees and your back will be saved," or something like that. However, body mechanics training that's carried out in a job-specific way, and with two-way communication with the workers involved, in general proves to be more effective, although we could use more data on that.
To tell people that it's not just a matter of bending your knees, and to show people that they can carry out their tasks in better body mechanics is a help, but it's also important to use these sessions as a means of gaining information from the workers. What about better ways to do it? What about alternative tools? There's no way to keep your back straight with this task? Well, let's rethink the task and redesign it.
So this is not carried out in a "blaming the victim way" in which you're telling people it's their responsibility to always keep their back straight, but it's a two-way discussion which actually proves to be edifying for the people like Pam Deutsch carrying out the ergonomics program, so they can hear more about what the issues are from the workers.
Stretching programs were also a component of the worker training in all three cases.
This is an outline of the research and development program at Montana Power, and the three issues that were discussed in our panel were a crimping tool study, a ground rod driver study, and a body map symptom survey.
To briefly summarize those, this is an example of crimping done off a pole. This is probably about 55 feet high, and high force is required; easily 100 pounds. And so this was tested in the Montana State University Industrial Engineering laboratory.
It scored very high in a physical stress index that they're using to evaluate this task, and therefore it deserves more attention.
This is an example of an electric crimper, a portable, battery-powered electric crimper, for instance, that might be a contender for substituting for a hand-powered crimper.
This is a slide from the PG&E San Francisco Division. They're looking at a hydraulic alternative to a hand crimper for heavy cable.
This is an example of ground rod driving. These ground rods are at least 10 feet long. Sometimes they are installed by a worker standing on the fender of a truck and holding a pneumatic tamper, and driving it down with the pneumatic tamper. It's extremely dangerous; it also got the attention of management because it ruins the tamper, and they have to pay $350 to fix each one.
So looking at alternatives for ground rod driving is an important issue, and Montana has done so by using a Hilti electric-powered rammer to drive it down. PG&E is looking at the Irgo-Pic, which is a pneumatic tool by Ingersoll-Rand to do the same kind of thing.
The body map survey is a typical symptom survey format, but what's interesting is that Montana Power has found that you can pretty much predict, based on the survey, who's going to end up filing comp claims as a result of worsening symptoms; and therefore it helps you do an early intervention program with those high risk people, or those people whose symptoms have advanced to a certain point.
They're also looking at equipment changes, and this is an example: instead of manhandling these spools of cable, the idea is to integrate the cable playout on a vehicle [Picture slide] in this case, a trailer; so that the spool itself doesn't have to be manually handled in the field at all. It can be placed on the trailer with a fork truck and then you can unroll the cable as you work.
Truck design was felt to be a problem by all three utilities in the panel; lack of handholds and steps.
Truck design has been modified in the case of PG&E, for example, by this storage arm which holds a gas-powered tamper, which weighs about 150 pounds.
Instead of lifting the tamper on and off, you can swing the storage arm away from the bumper and slide them off easily. This intervention was developed by a PG&E worker, and, the corporate newsletter was used as a way to proliferate this ergonomic intervention around the company.
There were some comments made about laboratory workers, because many waste treatment plants and other utilities have laboratories.
Here's an example of a modification for a shared microscope in which this 5'10" worker has to bend over. It was placed on a monitor list so she could keep her neck and back straight while using it; so can this 5 foot tall woman who uses the same microscope without having to bend.
Finally, Montana made some points about further research; this is a postural study done with luminescent markers at Montana State University on the work of linemen; this is an ongoing process. The money saved by Montana from its ergonomics interventions was then allocated the next year as a budget for the safety committee to do further economics work. So the safety committee was kind of rewarded for its good work by getting a budget for the next year to do more of the same.
So I'll close by saying that if we can have "ergonomic dog dishes" like this device here, we can certainly improve the working conditions of human beings, and I think we had a lot of good information on how to do that at this panel.
Thank you very much.
