NOTE: This document is provided for historical purposes only.
Suzanne Rodgers from WORKSITE ANALYSIS
MR. ALEXANDER: Our next wrap-up moderator will be Suzanne Rodgers, a consultant from Rochester, New York, who will overview the worksite analysis section.
DR. RODGERS: Thank you.
Our session on Worksite Analysis was made up of four speakers. Four different programs were presented; a few of them were more across programs, and there were a couple of specific ones.
Paula Bohr was nice enough to be very user-friendly and give me a summary of what she said, so I'm going to start with that.
Her primary points were about participatory ergonomics teams chosen to perform worksite analysis. This project was funded through a cooperative agreement with NIOSH, and involved three teams of health care workers: a group of orderlies, who are responsible for lifting and moving patients, and are in the dispatch group; a group of ICU nurses; and a group of clinical laboratory workers.
The teams were trained in ergonomics and were able to identify problems, make observations and take measurements. The first slide shows some of these measurements.
There is a lot of observational measurement and some specific measurements. One thing we liked very much was the kit they provided with the tools for the people to do the measurements. It included very high tech things like a tape measure. They also had some sound and lighting measurement equipment available. They also had the equipment needed to measure force and to measure out some distances and the workplace.
One thing I want to mention that's outside of her text was that she said "We provided a lot of forms to collect data on. And what did they do? They changed the forms, and they made them their forms." I just love that, because that's the ownership. That shows you that they weren't just doing this by rote; that they were saying "Hey, you know, this is what we think we need to gather." And what was interesting is that she found that whichever way they collected the data, whether it was more rigidly or less rigidly, they came to the same conclusions.
Methods used to define the problems varied with the teams, and some of the methods used by the dispatch orderlies are shown on the next slide. They interviewed, they looked at their accident incident data, observed (I'm sure they listened too), reviewed and documented all the procedures very neatly and identified what equipment was being used, how it was being used. The equipment considered for use in solving the problem was also evaluated.
This is very much an on-the-floor, participatory type of project. One particular team has implemented these solutions, and they have had a 42% reduction in their low back injuries and lost work days. This is a very nice study in the health care industry.
The second presentation was by Tom Jacobs of Frito- Lay. Basically, Tom presented a very nice ergonomics model that Frito-Lay is using in Texas, and that he is looking towards implementing at corporate level. His program is also using natural workgroups or teams. He gave us a lot of good tips, and many of these have been repeated in other presentations, but I want to just give him credit for these two:
1. "Don't rely on consultants, get in-house expertise" was one of his suggestions. And I thought that was good advice in terms of not only bringing people like us in from outside. He said "You need to have somebody inside who keeps up with the field, who can help the teams and use the teams as your focus."
2. He emphasized the importance of starting an ergonomics program with small bites, not trying to do it all at once. He also stressed the importance of management commitment in his presentation. For anybody who is looking at a corporate model for worksite analysis, his is a very nice one to look at.
Mark Johnson was our third speaker, and he talked about some of the things that they've done at Eastman Kodak in Rochester, particularly. The basic model is, again, making sure the workers are heavily involved, evaluating the data. I picked this part because it utilizes the checklists. They've developed a number of checklists themselves and with teams. Here are some of the ones that Mark has and are being used in Kodak facilities, if you're interested in more of those.
One of the questioners asked about a maintenance checklist, since we know that maintenance is very different from assembly line work. I don't know if those are available, but there's no harm in writing him in Rochester and asking about them.
Finally, Don talked about the ergonomic process that he uses; again, you'll see a lot of similarities here: the use of an ergonomic steering committee which is mainly management created to help facilitate the teams; then the floor teams and the departmental sub-teams, in some cases; and the existing safety, quality, production teams coordinating with them; the coordinator, called a driver in my technology; and a consultant who is there to help fill in the last part of the triangle.
This is the basic flow chart that he has developed in terms of what's being done. You can work into the ergonomic workplace analysis through any of those upper issues: the quality, the human error or some sort of complaint, safety, injury-illness. The data collections survey are done followed by, depending on what the problem is, either a fatigue analysis or use of the lifting guidelines. Once the problem is solved, the important part is the reality check. Having solved the problem, go back out on the floor and find out if the people who hadn't been involved in it really think the solution is worth the cent. Don has some nice cost-benefit data too. After implementation of the plan or the controls, it is important to reevaluate it, and then use it as a case study. Monitoring and follow-up are essential in a good ergonomics process.
I have to finish there and just want to add that there were a lot of themes in common in these presentations. The primary ones related to employee involvement, in-house expertise, starting small and making sure your managers are up to date on what you're doing and are committed to it. Thank you.
MR. ALEXANDER: Thank you very much. That was very enlightening.
