Lean ergonomics finds the waste in production processes and eliminates it. Waste in production processes involves tasks that add time and effort, but no value, to the product. When waste adds time to making a product, the production cost, errors, and injuries may be likely to increase.
As a broker, you can do your clients a great service by helping them understand how an ergonomically sound work environment is good for business and can lower the risk of workplace injuries.
Ergonomics principles match the physical capabilities of the worker to the work and the work environment, thereby improving systems and optimizing processes. By identifying and eliminating awkward postures, forceful exertions, and unnecessary repetitions, clients can increase both productivity and employee efficiency. Employees actually produce more with less effort, strain, fatigue, discomfort, and pain.
Consider this example of wasted motion in a palletizing job: Say one of your clients builds 11 pallets, holding four layers of seven boxes, over a 4-hour shift. Each box contains 40 packets of instructional materials and weighs 35 pounds. As a finished box comes down the conveyor, an employee picks it up and walks it 8 feet to a scale to be weighed, then walks it back 8 feet and lowers it onto a pallet.
All that walking and carrying wastes a total of 37 minutes per work shift. Examining this task from a lean-ergonomics perspective would lead to the elimination of this wasted motion, with the added benefit of reducing the risk of injury.
A possible solution for walking and weighing each box is to have the client replace a section of the conveyor with a scale, so that as the box comes down to the taping machine, it is weighed. This modification would save time and improve productivity. It also eliminates the physical exertion of an employee lifting, lowering, and carrying the box.
This simple example illustrates how the application of lean ergonomics can:
For your clients who are State Fund policyholders, encourage them to use State Fund’s ergonomic services so they can reap the benefits of an ergonomically sound work environment.
The information herein is for reference only and State Fund does not warranty its accuracy or fitness for a particular purpose. Any products, references, or links to Web sites are not an endorsement by State Fund or its employees, but serve only as examples to assist you with your workplace design changes. State Fund cannot be held liable or accountable for content on linked Web sites.
