Enhancing ergonomics
By Staff -- Modern Materials Handling, 12/1/1999
Moving ahead on a proposed ergonomics standard will be a hot item on the regulatory agenda for OSHA next year-and perhaps beyond the year 2000 before planned actions become final. Those wanting to stay in compliance with the federal agency's rules will be keeping on eye on Washington for developments.But look to Detroit and the Ford Motor Company if you want to learn about and stay abreast of cutting-edge ergonomics research and practical study on manual materials handling and its impacts on employees. In particular, watch what Catherine Rae, an ergonomist and group leader for Sandalwood Enterprises, consultants to Ford, and her team are doing and developing.
Ford management-together with the United Auto Workers union-has made strides over the past decade in evaluating risks and implementing ergonomic changes in jobs with a history of work-related injuries, particularly those relating to manual handling tasks. The automaker is well ahead of what OSHA might require under a proposed ergonomics standard, Rae says.
Ford has a reactive ergonomics process for responding to employee injuries that has been benchmarked by many companies, says Rae. Part of her responsibility has been to develop a proactive strategy for identifying injury risks from manual materials handling as well as finding solutions for any potential problems. This effort has led to the creation of a corporate selection and design strategy for materials handling systems that are used as ergonomic aids.
There are basic rules, for example, looking at whether to use lift or tilt tables to perform certain jobs, or whether semi-automated devices such as hoists or articulated manipulator arms are necessary. There are time-prediction algorithms from the research which are applicable to any manual materials handling task.
In coming months and years, the challenge at Ford will be to drive the use of ergonomic principles more upstream in the development of manufacturing processes, such as integrating them into advanced software tools that simulate the human in the work environment, Rae says.
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