health and safety

Many companies devote time to training their employees on back safety in which they teach the basics of back anatomy and safe lifting techniques.  The question I have had on this training “Is the time and money spent on back injury prevention worth it?”  Of course, this question (“Is it worth it?”) should be asked of any training.  After all, training takes time, takes employees away from their jobs and therefore is a significant investment by the company in their personnel as well as financially.

In this part two of my blog series on obesity and driving.  In Part 1 of this blog series I discussed a study (1) that examined normal weight and obese truck drivers based on BMI.  The study showed that severely obese drivers were 43% to 55% more likely to crash than were drivers with a normal BMI.  This is a striking correlation between weight and driving accidents.  Reading this study caused me to do a little more research on obesity and driving which is how I came across this second study:  Driver obesity and the risk of fatal injury during traffic collisions (2).

“To Err is Human.”  That statement is known and appreciated by quality, production and safety managers.  That we all make mistakes is certainly nothing new.  Operational failures occur across all industries but the impact of errors can vary greatly between industries and companies.  The healthcare industry has perhaps the best known impact of errors.  Medical errors resulting in patient injury or death are quite costly.  The Institute of Medicine published are report back in 2000 (To Err is Human) that stated these errors cost the in

Why does there still remain a chasm between productivity and prevention?  In the great majority of companies I’ve worked for and others I’ve known they maintain separate departments and personnel on productivity and prevention, i.e. operations, quality/lean vs. EHS, risk management.  There is little, if any, overlap or regular collaboration between them.  This disconnect often results in work policies, procedures and design that are less than optimal for employee performance.

This is the third blog in the series on deer hunting and Lean, Ergonomics (Human Factors, Six Sigma and Systems Thinking (L.E.S.S.).

In my last blog I spent time talking about how I adjusted my rifle to fit me.  In this blog I want to discuss two other items—tree stands (physical ergonomics) and my crossbow (human factors).

This is the second blog in the series on deer hunting and Lean, Ergonomics (Human Factors, Six Sigma and Systems Thinking (L.E.S.S.).

There are many factors deer hunters must consider when choosing their equipment—their own body and physical characteristics as well as the environment in which they hunt, i.e. location (woods vs. swamp, brushy vs. clear), temperatures, hunting from the ground or a stand, etc.  A hunter must be keenly aware of their physical size and abilities when choosing equipment so that it fits and supports their hunting abilities instead of being a hindrance.

Pushing and pulling is involved in many tasks and jobs in a wide variety of industries.  In order to avoid injuries and optimize efficiency it is important to properly design pushing and pulling tasks.  A good online resource that explains the ergonomics of material handling in general and then goes into the details of pushing and pulling tasks is called “

Light—it’s necessary for humans.  It effects people mentally, physically, physiologically and their overall performance.  The impact of lighting in the workplace is very important to understand—not only to achieve energy savings but also to influence worker performance.  Intuitively we know that lighting is of value but it is often overlooked in the workplace, especially the value related to productivity.

As an ergonomist, I am often asked what my opinion is on post-offer, pre-work (POPW) screens for new hires.  My first response is to ask why they are asking that question.  The normal answer is because they have a injury rate higher than what they’d like and wonder if it’s related to their workers’ fitness for work.  I have several follow up questions that help me understand the root cause of their injuries.  As much as possible work should be designed so that the majority of the population can perform the job.   This is becoming more and more important and imperative to organizations due t

The challenge for balancing productivity and safety exists for all industries but especially in the tree care industry where there are many variables that impact both.  Tree care companies experience costs related to incidences involving damage to their own property and/or that of the client as well as employee injuries.  Often times these incidences are accepted as the normal cost of doing business.  The bills are paid and business continues as usual.  However, these costs have a significant impact on the amount of extra business a company has to bring in in order to cover these costs.  Th