Over the remainder of the year I’m going to blog about some of the lessons I’ve learned through the years through practicing, facilitating and consulting on ergonomics, lean and process improvement. Today is the first blog in this series on “Lessons Learned”.
Standing has become the thing (preferred posture) to do at the office these days thanks to all of the attention and hype on “Sitting Disease”. When working with office-based clients the question that always comes up from the office manager is how they can cost effectively provide standing workstations since the majority of their workers are now requesting standing workstations. When I teach my office ergonomics class on “How to make your workstati
“Location, location, location!” We’ve all heard those words when it comes to real estate. The same house located on a lake is of more value and therefore worth much more than when it is located on a street in the city. The same can be said for where the roles and responsibility of an ergonomic program resides. The value to company can rise and fall depending on the location. If you read this month’s (December 2011) feature article you probably have a good idea on the best location. The most common location for ergonomic programs is in EHS or HR.
Determining and demonstrating the value of your ergonomics initiative for specific engineering improvements are commonly requested. Unfortunately, many of us struggle to even begin to justify improvements, let alone choose a meaningful calculator to demonstrate the benefits of improving workplace conditions. A quick Google search turns up available calculators: Equipois Return on Investment (ROI) Calculator and
If you work in an office you probably spend the greater part of your day sitting in your chair. Depending on the length of the work, your “seat” time can easily exceed 6-8 hours in that chair. Is it comfortable? If not, you may want to consider getting a different chair. The most common question I get regarding chairs is, “What features should I look for in a new chair?”
Here are 5 features to look for with a brief explanation:
