Ergonomics testing reveals workers are injuring themselves quicker than ISO guidelines suggest

New findings suggest the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) push/pull requirements might not go far enough to protect workers, and that more testing is needed to better represent real-life situations and prevent injury.

Caster Connection, manufacturer of casters and wheels, collaborated with the Spine Research Institute at The Ohio State University, in conjunction with the National Science Foundation (NSF) Industry/University Cooperative Research Center to assemble the study. Together, they discovered the importance of replicating authentic movement for injury prevention in push/pull testing.

“Occupationally-related low back disorders and shoulder musculoskeletal disorders are a leading cause of lost work days and are a costly occupational safety and health problem facing a variety of industries,” said Joe Lyden, president of Caster Connection. “These injuries occur because organizations vary in the type of push/pull gauge they’re using – varying test results from one organization to the next.”

Additional findings include:
● In order to be accurate for real-life situations, acceleration in testing should be much higher than ISO guidelines advise
● Workers are injuring themselves more quickly than guidelines suggest and before they even realize it
● Current guidelines do not reflect how people are using carts in real-life situations
● The force required to push a cart differs from the force required to pull a cart and people don’t typically test pulling

The objective of this particular study was to provide recommendations for practitioners in regard to push/pull force assessment that improves the accuracy and precision of hand force estimates, thus making the SRI push/pull guidelines more applicable. The report recommends more testing to determine the gold standard for new guidelines.

For more information about the early findings of the study, visit www.casterconnection.com/research. The study in its entirety will be available online in 2020.