Employers in both the manufacturing plant floor and the offices report that one of the most pressing ergonomic topics is the workers’ request sit/stand desks. Throughout the offices and manufacturing work space of Topper Industrial, ergonomic training is part of the company’s lean initiatives. Adjustable workstations reduce risks from work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and sedentary and static work postures.
MSDs are a major Environmental Health & Safety concern and cost businesses as much as $54 billion annually, according to estimates from the Institute of Medicine. In addition to increased back pain, sedentary and static postures are also known contributors to high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.
Ergonomic industrial carts help companies get in front of these risks by providing employees with an affordable product allowing workers to self-assess and self-correct ergonomic issues. The benefits of ergonomics include decreased worker compensation costs, increased productivity and better overall employee job satisfaction.
The most effective ergonomics programs take into account the personal needs and risks that each employee faces at their individual workstations. In the past, employers had to hire expensive coaches to assess and train all employees to achieve that level of customization. Many companies today do not have the expertise, resources, or budget to deploy this kind of training or product selection. With simple user-friendly solutions, fork truck free work spaces are accomplished with minimal training.
Like all elements of lean, ergonomic equipment is iterative, cumulative, and part of continuous process improvement. Human factors and ergonomics in manufacturing facilitates integration and application of scientific knowledge about human aspects of manufacturing and provides a quantitative series of metrics demonstrating the efficacy of best practices.
The equipment manufactured today must cover a broad spectrum of ergonomics and human factors with a focus on the design operation and management of contemporary manufacturing systems both in the shop floor and office environments in the quest for manufacturing agility.
Enhancement and integration of human skills with equipment performance for improved market competitiveness is mandate, no longer an option. Management of change product and process quality and human-system reliability only happens with the inter- and cross-disciplinary nature of the real world, plant floor reality. Ergonomics allow for a wide scope of issues relevant to manufacturing system design and engineering human resource management social organizational safety and health issues.
Total quality management must include prevention of work-related musculoskeletal disorders; it is accomplished when the ergonomics of workplace equipment and tool design ergonomics programs guide industry standards. Automation safety and robot systems, human skills development, and knowledge enhancing technologies improved product reliability and safety and health of workers.
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