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Ergonomic Assessments
We offer ergonomic services to enhance your employees’ comfort, safety, and well being, while increasing corporate efficiency and effectiveness. These services will increase job satisfaction, reducing absenteeism and health care/workers’ compensation costs. Our expertise of human kinetics supports our ergonomic assessments. We consider many factors that influence workers in their environment. Our recommendations offer practical approaches to optimizing human performance in your unique working environment.
Please click on the following services we offer and see how they can benefit your company.
Ergonomic Assessments – Section E
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Ergonomic Assessments – Section R
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Ergonomic Assessments – Section G
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Ergonomic Assessments – Section O
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Musculoskeletal injuries (MSI) are injuries of the soft tissues including muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments, and cartilage. The most common examples of musculoskeletal injuries are repetitive strain injuries, including tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome, and back injuries, such as strained ligaments and vertebrae discomfort.
These injuries can be prevented by evaluating the design of the equipment and tools used, taking account of their size, shape, weight, weight distribution, and handgrips. Choosing the appropriate design will reduce the likelihood of MSIs. It is also important to conduct the assessment in the actual work environment, paying particular attention to functional layout. This includes an evaluation of reach distances, sitting or standing heights in relation to work surfaces, floor surfaces, and the adjustability of the work environment to suit all of your workers’ needs.
This evaluation considers any possible excessive forces, highly repetitive movements, awkward or static postures, and contact stresses. Workers who perform manual handling or who work in cold environments are also at increased risk of MSIs. Work organization is also examined, i.e., pace and layout of work and task variety, to determine whether any changes could be made to improve productivity and reduce the risk of MSIs.
The measures of usability are efficiency and effectiveness in attaining work goals. If the tools, equipment, and machinery are not intuitive, staff may take longer to perform tasks; they may find their work more frustrating, and this could decrease their performance, resulting in product errors.
Consistency is primary when evaluating usability. Are the controls consistently and intuitively placed and organized relative to their functions and to other equipment? Are the controls compatible with user expectations? A device should be designed to work with the user, so that its operation doesn’t create sensory overload in the operator. The operator should be able to tell if the device is working properly or completing the task correctly. For instance, if an operator is activating controls, there should be visual feedback or audible alarms to confirm completion of a function, or to alert the operator to error.
The user should have as much control as possible over the device and understand all its functions, including error recovery procedures, so that the operator can adjust or correct easily. Devices should be designed so that the most important functions are within easy reach, instructions are clear, and functions are easily identified, both visually and manually.
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A comprehensive safety program is essential for employee health, safety, and wellbeing and to create a strong safety culture in the corporation. Ideally, your safety program should be tailored to your workplace needs and should address hazards relevant to your particular type of work, for example, work with chemicals, heavy equipment, or in an office environment.
Your safety program’s primary objective is to prevent injuries and occupational disease. This calls for commitment to safety – from the CEO and managerial level, right through the entire staff – embodied and displayed in a formal safety policy.
Within the program, the responsibilities of all staff levels must be clearly outlined. There need to be regular inspections of the premises, equipment, and work methods; when deficiencies are discovered, action must be taken to correct unsafe conditions. We can customize your work instructions and procedures by conducting a task analysis of the required work and offer training to ensure that your workers have a complete understanding of safe work procedures.
We can set up health and safety committee meetings so that everyone in your workplace has a say in safety and an avenue for reporting unsafe acts or conditions. This committee can also review accident or near-miss situations, first aid records, and injury statistics to uncover any developing hazardous trends in your working environment.
Workers don’t consciously decide to make errors; they do what makes sense to them at the time. They rely on successful past experiences, training, and procedures to guide them in their choices. If there is suspicion of error in your workplace, tasks should be evaluated in relation to the workers’ abilities. There may be incompatibilities with the tools, equipment, or machinery. Work procedures may not be well understood, or workers may be unconsciously deviating from safe work practices. For example, workers may be developing unsafe shortcuts that seem faster or more efficient.
In evaluating error, we examine worker interaction in the working environment to identify factors that may reduce optimum performance, such as personal stressors, boredom, monotony, multi-tasking, and organizational pressures. People are sensitive to production pressure, union/labour issues, and job security. Work schedules can be analyzed to identify whether fatigue or time of day could be initiating error.
It is important to have an efficient and effective process that increases productivity and job satisfaction. Your staff are on the front lines. They know the tasks and processes needed to achieve success. This equips them to generate innovations that increase productivity and excellence. This may entail your staff learning to work in teams with greater autonomy over the functional design of their jobs.
This integration can be nurtured by focus groups to get staff feedback. Work shifts and schedules can be improved to reduce fatigue and maintain optimum performance. Job rotation gives exposure to various skill sets, prevents monotony, and reduces physical over-exertion from repetitive work.
The effectiveness of your training procedures and supervision are also examined to ensure that work procedures are understood correctly, and that work is performed safely. The supply chains above and below your organization are also evaluated to ensure that the corporation is operating at its most effective, maximizing profits and maintaining its competitive edge.
- Thermal comfort
- Illumination
- Noise
- Vibration
Thermal Comforts
When assessing thermal conditions we measure air temperature, surface temperatures, humidity, and air velocity. If these factors are not compatible with the individual’s thermal regulatory system, the body compensates by either dissipating or retaining heat. Energy is needed to maintain this balance, affecting worker attention, concentration, and efficiency in mental tasks. There can also be increased irritability, along with errors and reduced performance in manual tasks.
Illumination
The right amount of light is important in providing a safe working environment. In low light, individuals are unable to detect hazards, and tripping or slipping become more hazardous. In addition, low light makes individuals more susceptible to eyestrain in close inspection work or from glare from computer monitors.
Over lighting is also problematic, especially in open-plan offices. Excessive lighting results in deep shadows, reflections, and excessive contrast. The right amount of lighting depends on the task. For general tasks, such as warehousing, 250–300 lux may be sufficient. Precise work, such as technical drawing, may need 1000–2000 lux; at this level, localized lighting is best so workers can direct the light where they need it.
A light assessment also considers room functionality, identifying strongly contrasting wall, floor, and work surfaces. Direct and indirect light sources are examined to ensure that all objects and major surfaces in the visual field are equally bright.
Noise
Workplace noise can have serious physiological effects. Ideally, excessive noise should be contained at the source by engineered controls, such as acoustic insulation. If noise cannot be reduced, exposure duration should be addressed, perhaps by rotating placements in noisy areas. As well, comfortable, accepted methods of personal hearing protection should be selected to protect workers from progressive or acute hearing loss.
Ongoing noise can impair alertness and concentration as well as causing considerable annoyance. This can affect the output of tasks, resulting in more errors. Reduced production, efficiency, and quality will be the outcomes.
Our assessment of noise in your workplace aims to reduce noise using the methods best suited to worker health and company production. The work areas are assessed for localized and general decibel levels, sound-absorbing surfaces, and worker tolerance of noise.
Vibration
Vibration in the workplace can initiate musculoskeletal disorders resulting in reduced ability to perform psychomotor tasks. Depending on the frequency and amplitude, vibration can also impair visual abilities as images become blurred or unsteady. Vibration from using power tools can cause hand–arm or even whole body discomfort. Working in cold environments can exaggerate and accelerate the symptoms of vibration, entailing the use of additional protection.
Offering an accessible environment says yours is a caring and welcoming corporation that accommodates the abilities of all. An access audit includes assessment of physical dimensions to ensure accessibility and space for everyone, from wheelchair users to parents with baby strollers. Floor surfaces, handrails, access areas, stairs, ramps, and lighting are included.
Automatic features such as door openers may be recommended in suitable locations, and assistive devices can be installed so the visually and hearing impaired can easily navigate and communicate in your workplace. An accessible environment creates confidence for both workers and clients.
Fatigue is a state of tiredness that reduces alertness and optimum performance. Insufficient sleep can affect both physical and mental tasks. Fatigue can even create personality changes, irritability, and depression; some individuals may lose their appetite or develop increased susceptibility to illness.
To prevent fatigue, it is beneficial to examine your shift schedules to identify whether workers are succumbing to fatigue because of extended work hours, early starts, or rotating shifts.
Fatigued workers will try to compensate for their reduction in performance. They may work more slowly, rely more on co-workers, avoid certain tasks, and check work more closely. These can affect productivity, processes, and motivation, so it’s important to introduce a fatigue management system. This system should consider not just the time at work, but the worker’s whole day, since fatigue accumulates from the time we wake up. Workers should be educated about fatigue management, learning how much sleep they need and about the effects of chronic and acute sleep loss. Night shift workers should be given tips on how to sleep during the day, to compensate for the natural rhythm that programs us to sleep at night.
To reduce the negative consequences of fatigue for night shift workers, it is also beneficial that they not perform safety-critical work after midnight, and particularly not during the 3–5 a.m. period, when alertness is at its lowest. The design of the night workers’ environment should be evaluated, paying particular attention to lighting. Nutrition also merits attention, as it is another factor that influences fatigue.
The amount of stress an individual feels depends on their coping mechanisms. Working in a highly stressful environment is a health and wellness issue, since stress can create serious physiological and psychological effects. The ill-effects of stress are usually encountered when the demands in the environment are greater than the individual’s coping resources.
In evaluating occupational stress, we identify how much control an individual has over their job, their support systems for their work role, their workload, and performance expectations. The nature of the job may be too complex or too monotonous for the individual’s abilities, and the worker may feel powerless to change the situation. Fears for job security or organizational change can initiate acute or chronic stress. Noise levels, poor lighting, and lack of climate comforts can also cause stress. All these factors are considered when designing a stress reduction management system.
- Attract high performers
- Maximize productivity
- Increase Employee engagement
- Retain top talent
- Boost employee morale
- Decrease healthcare costs
- Reduce workers' compensation
- Moderate hidden costs
- Limit sickleave absenteeism
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