process improvement

Everyone is talking about benefits of employee engagement and having employees participate in their jobs and how the work gets done.  Well run and successful ergonomics, lean, process improvement and wellness programs have a firm foundation in engaged employees.  But don’t you think employee engagement is over-rated?  Why on earth would companies want their employees to be engaged?

In part two of this blog series I gave an overview of Lean. Now we’re moving onto the second component of L.E.S.S.™ which is Ergonomics.

Ergonomics (synonymous with Human Factors) Defined

In part 1 we looked at current business disciplines, their associated strengths and weaknesses and the reason for why a new strategy and approach is need for proactively and reactively solving productivity, efficiency and safety issues.  In part 2 we are going to explore the power of L.E.S.S. ™

 The Power of L.E.S.S. ™

Part 1:

Recently I gave a presentation at Safety 2013, ASSE’s professional development conference called the “Nuts and Bolts of Effective and Sustainable Ergonomics Programs”.  The “Nuts and Bolts” focused on the management system of ergonomics, not on the tools and methods used for ergonomic assessment.  I did this because the reasons most programs, whether ergonomics or other, fail is because they lack a management/business system.  Thinking of ergonomics in terms of a management system isn’t routine or common to most people who are responsible for ergonomics.  This was verified by the comments I

It seems as though everyone is doing Lean these days—Lean Office, Lean Manufacturing, Lean this and Lean that.  Lean is a very good process improvement methodology started by Toyota.

Last week I presented the first 5 reasons of my Top 10 list for why ergonomics (and lean) programs failure.  Here are the next five:

Have you ever brought up a new idea at work only to have it “shot down” before you could explain the reasoning and benefits of doing something different?  Or have you been the person who has “shot down” the new ideas?  Chances are we’ve had experience doing both.   Oftentimes we are very quick to put down new ideas because of our bias that new ideas mean more work with a less than certain outcome.  Based upon my experience in working for companies as an employee or as a consultant here the top 10 responses to new ideas that happen but shouldn’t.  Read the list and ask yourself are you sayin

What is the age that you use to define for an “older” worker?  Is it 45, 50, 55 or 65?  Employers across the nation are seeing the average age of their work force getting older each year as people are delaying retirement more than ever before.  This is a trend that has employers concerned for several reasons with two being the most impactful—potential injury/safety ramifications and upcoming knowledge loss.  The “common wisdom” has been that older workers don’t get hurt often but when they do the expenses are very high.  Is this “common wisdom” true?  A