Day: May 26, 2016

Staying Competitive as Recession Wanes

The economy is finally showing signs of life; although as we mentioned in our last post, recovery is likely to be a slow process. As America recovers from the recession, businesses may find themselves trapped between wary consumers on one side and skittish bankers on the other, further slowing economic recovery. A continued lag in spending and lending means that belt-tightening will remain the norm for at least the next six to 12 months if businesses are to stay competitive and, in some cases, survive.  

In an informal poll conducted last month, Manufacturing & Technology eJournal readers said they planned to rely on a variety of cost-cutting measures over the next year to maintain their competitiveness (click the link above for complete survey results):

  • 36% expand territory
  • 32% seek cost reductions from existing vendors
  • 24% eliminate underperforming products/services
  • 24% employee layoffs
  • 21% reduce salaries or work days
  • 12.5% seek work closer to home

Turning to your own workers for suggestions on how to increase cost-saving measures has proved a successful tactic in many industries during the recession. While concessions made by auto workers and airline employees have garnered the lion’s share of the headlines, workers in nearly every industry and business field have agreed to cut salaries, decrease work hours or forego benefits in order to maintain the solvency of their employer and keep their jobs.

It’s all about sharing the load and allowing workers to buy into the decision-making process. Workers express greater support for solutions they have helped create. And they’re more likely to embrace cost-cutting measures — and exert peer pressure on fellow employees to toe the line — when they feel:

  1. Their efforts will have a direct impact on solving the problem.
  2. More people will be able to keep their jobs because of the sacrifices they are making.
  3. The burden is being shared equally by workers and management.  

That last point may be the most critical. We’ll look at why next time.

Using Ergonomics to Increase Employee Diversity

In this space we’ve often extolled the value of ergonomics and ergonomic equipment. Ergonomically-designed material handling equipment like DJ Products’ CartCaddy motorized carts and tugs offer multiple benefits in the workplace, including:

  • Reducing worker injuries and ensuring a safe work environment
  • Improving worker morale by decreasing physical stress and strain during task performance
  • Decreasing medical, insurance and worker’s compensation costs
  • Decreasing time-lost costs due to worker injury and recovery/rehabilitation
  • Increasing productivity, efficiency and profitability

But as Anne Kramer, CEO and President of Ergo Works, Inc., pointed out in a recent article posted on DiversityBusiness.com, ergonomics also opens the workplace to a more diverse workforce by improving accessibility.

Ergonomics is the science of fitting the task to the worker, rather than forcing the worker to contort his body to perform the task. Ergonomic design recognizes that workers come in all sizes of varying physical ability. Recognizing the great diversity among workers, ergonomic design allows equipment to be positioned and used by a maximum number of workers. 

Ergonomic equipment is designed to minimize the overexertion or cumulative trauma of manual lifting, pushing, pulling, stretching and other repetitive tasks that can injure soft muscle tissues. Kramer notes that back and shoulder injuries account for one-third of all missed work days. When the burden of a task is assumed by the equipment instead of the worker’s back, the need for inappropriate exertion is eliminated and the risk of injury is reduced. Ergonomics allows a more diverse group of workers to perform the same task or use the same piece of equipment, keeping injury rates low and productivity high. Use of ergonomic equipment allows employers to satisfy their legal responsibility to accommodate workers, maximizes use of their workforce and reflects a commitment to diversity in the workplace.

Two Factors Have Greatest Impact on Ergonomic Risk

Frequency and duration are the two factors that have the greatest impact on ergonomic risk. In developing or reviewing your company’s ergonomic plan, pay particular attention to the frequency and duration of tasks that stress the musculoskeletal system. Reducing the frequency or duration of these tasks will significantly decrease the incidence and severity of musculoskeletal injuries in your workplace. When not addressed, the frequency and duration of tasks that strain workers’ musculature or skeletal system have been proven to significantly increase the risk and expense of long-term injury and loss of function.

It makes sense that the more frequently a worker is required to perform a pushing, pulling, lifting or carrying task that causes overexertion or strain, the greater the risk of musculoskeletal injury. In fact, the repetitive performance of a task over time takes a similar toll on the body, even when muscle strain is not involved. The longer a worker is required to perform a task — duration — also increases the risk of injury. Interestingly, researchers at the National Safety Council have found that the presence of multiple ergonomic risk factors — as few as two — has a multiplicative rather than an additive effect on the likely development of musculoskeletal injury.

The following actions have been found to effectively reduce the risk of musculoskeletal injury in the workplace:

  • Decreasing the number of risk factors present in the workplace. Ergonomically-designed carts, tugs, scissor lifts and similar material handling equipment can be used to perform manual tasks that involve pushing, pulling, lifting and transporting, taking the burden off workers, reducing injury risk and improving productivity.
  • Providing sufficient recovery time between task sessions. Providing rest breaks allows muscle recovery between work sessions. Rotating workers through a variety of tasks limits their risk exposure. But the most productive solution is utilization of ergonomic material handling equipment that enables repeated performance of a specialized task without injury risk.

What’s Stress Got to Do with It?

When we think about work stress we tend to focus on its impact on our daily job: cost overruns that threaten to push our project over budget, smoothing the ruffled feathers of a fellow employee, meeting sales projections, etc. But stress comes from multiple sources. There’s mental stress from trying to accomplish a goal, emotional stress from interacting with fellow workers, and physical stress resulting from overexertion. We’re human which means that stress is a daily occurrence, particularly in this economy. The problem is that chronic stress can affect performance — both mental and physical, decreasing effectiveness and productivity.

A new study published in the July issue of the journal Science shows that chronic stress actually rearranges the wiring in our brain. In a study with rats conducted jointly by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and researchers at the University of Minho in Portugal, stressed rats lost the ability to make effective decisions. Effective decision making, whether in the performance of mental or physical tasks, requires humans to choose the most productive option from a field of choices. When stress is unrelieved, people are more likely to make poor decisions. In the study, the portion of the brain associated with goal-directed behavior shrank while the area that controlled habit formation grew. Under perpetual stress, people, just like the rats in the study, lose the ability to make smart decisions and fall back on old habits.

Physical stress from overexertion, overreaching or cramped work platforms were as debilitating in eroding decision-making ability as emotional or mental stress. Interestingly, physical stress accelerated the erosion of mental abilities faster than other kinds of stress. Pain and discomfort seem to act more quickly on human stress thresholds than mere mental irritation. Utilizing ergonomically-designed material handling equipment is one smart way to decrease employee stress.

Ergonomic Carts Can Help Struggling Hospitality Industry

Staycations and a sharp decline in business travel during the recession have pushed the U.S. hospitality industry to the edge. In recession for the past 24 months, overall occupancy rates continue to erode despite a slight seasonal uptick in June. Occupancy rates at U.S. hotels, motels and resorts have been falling even more rapidly than before over the past eight weeks and the immediate future doesn’t look good, according to industry watcher Hotelmarketing.com.

Continued concern about family finances and potential job loss have kept families at home. Group travel is down, and tours are being cancelled for failure to meet minimums. Businesses have cut travel to hold the line on expenses. Convention and trade show attendance is down. Hotels and motels are competing for a narrowing traveler pool that has forced many to cut staff until the economy improves and the hospitality industry rebounds.

Savvy hoteliers are turning to ergonomically-designed hospitality carts that allow a single employee to accomplish a greater workload with less physical effort. Ergonomic design eliminates strains and pains that workers can develop from pushing heavy laundry, cleaning and linen carts at hotels, motels, casinos and resorts. Powered housekeeping carts and clean and dirty linen carts allow a single employee to safely manage heavy loads of linens or cleaning supplies.

Powered platform carts and electric carts allow easy and safe movement of supplies, materials, parts or machinery from one area of a facility to another. Compact design permits operators to easily and safely maneuver carts through heavily traveled hotel corridors and narrow behind-the-scenes hallways. Motorized dump hoppers makes trash removal a breeze.

DJ Products, the national leader in the manufacture of ergonomic motorized carts and tugs, offers a full line of material handling products designed to meet the needs of the hospitality industry. Our motorized cart retro kit can be adapted and installed on any cart to increase safety and productivity. Visit the DJ Products website for more information.

Power Mover Could Take Bite Out of Prepping for Ida

The weather folks are in their glory, on full alert as hurricane Ida churns toward the Gulf Coast. Even up here in the far northern reaches of the Midwest (Little Falls, MN) where even mild fallout from Ida is highly unlikely, local weather broadcasters are dancing on screen in paroxysms of joy as they gasp the latest warning bulletins. It’s likely to be a few weeks before any real snow hits our neck of the woods, so I guess Ida gives the storm chasers something to do; but prevailing winds being what they are, I don’t think we’re in much danger of flooding up here.

All the hoopla in the press did give me a new idea to pass along to our sales team. I saw resort workers struggling to push stacked lounge chairs across pool aprons and into storage areas. You could see them struggling to muscle the heavy stacks of chairs against the wind. It occurred to me how easy the job with be with DJ Products’ versatile WagonCaddy power mover. We’ve already adapted our powered material handling equipment to help local schools maneuver metal bleachers around school gymnasiums and on and off playing fields. This application for the hospitality industry would be a snap!

Ergonomically-designed to take the strain off workers’ backs, DJ Products’ WagonCaddy power mover allows an operator to quickly and easily transport materials — like lounge chairs — parts or machinery without physical exertion. (Click here to see a video of the WagonCaddy in action.) Like all of our ergonomically-designed, powered material handling equipment, this tug is equipped with an instant safety stop to prevent injuries. A variable speed thumb twist allows the operator to smoothly move in forward and reverse up to 3 mph. Compact design allows for maneuvering in narrow corridors and tight spaces and the cart can pivot loads a full 360 degrees. For full details, visit DJ Products website.

ErgoExpo Promotes Value of Ergonomics to Business

With the 15th Annual National Ergonomics Conference and Exposition opening tomorrow in Las Vegas, this seems like a good time to promote the value of ergonomics to creating safe working conditions, safe work environments and saving businesses a considerable amount of money on their bottom line. ErgoExpo will focus on the role of workplace ergonomics in economic recovery with special educational tracks detailing return on investment, impact on America’s aging workforce, potential to reduce health care costs, and impact on improving workplace safety.

The application of ergonomics to workplace processes and equipment has been proven time and again to increase productivity and profitability while improving health, safety and morale. Implementing an ergonomic plan and utilizing ergonomic equipment in your place of business is a win-win proposition — for business owners and their employees.

  • Ergonomic procedures eliminate painful movements that can stretch and pull muscles causing injury, particularly with repetition or over time.
  • Utilizing ergonomically-designed material handling equipment eliminates the strain and risk of injury from transporting and positioning materials or equipment.
  • Implementing an ergonomic program creates a safer environment in the workplace.
  • Ergonomic equipment allows workers to stay on the job longer and take fewer and shorter breaks, increasing productivity.
  • A safer work environment means fewer injuries and fewer lost man-hours, increasing worker productivity.
  • Fewer injuries decrease direct medical and physical therapy costs as well as the expense of insurance and disability claims, improving your bottom line.
  • When work is less physically taxing, workers are happier and workplace morale goes up.
  • When injuries go down and morale goes up, absenteeism goes down and productivity goes up!

To find out more about ergonomically-designed material handling equipment, visit the DJ Products’ website today.

Obama Administration Proposes New Ergonomic Reporting Rules

For the last year, the economy, health care reform and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have occupied President Obama, forcing his campaign promise to improve workplace safety onto the back burner. With those issues under better control, the Obama administration appears to be ramping up to tackle workplace safety. Repetitive-stress musculoskeletal injuries harm 460,000 workers and cost U.S. businesses $9.1 billion in health care costs each year. As the first step toward developing regulations to reduce the risk and incidence of musculoskeletal injuries, the Obama administration this week proposed that U.S. companies be required to keep more extensive records of ergonomic-related injuries. Most analysts assume this to be the administration’s first volley in the battle to reinstate workplace injury regulations similar to those implemented by President Clinton but quickly nullified by President Bush in 2001.

The new proposal doesn’t attempt to reinstate the Clinton regulations at this time, but it does put the issue back on the negotiating table and is expected to quickly revive the ergonomics debate in Washington. Earning immediate support from the AFL-CIO which has been lobbying for a return of ergonomic requirements since Obama’s campaign days, the newly proposed reporting requirement is subject to public comment before it takes effect. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is expected to provide stiff opposition. The country’s largest business lobbying group, the U.S. Chamber fought vigorously against the Clinton era ergonomic regulations arguing that implementation would cost American employers more than $4.2 billion per year.

Frankly, we think opposition to ergonomics is shortsighted. Change is inexorable. The upshot of the health care reform debate is that American medicine must move from the current acute care model to increased preventative care to reign in soaring medical costs and effectively care for America’s aging population. New emphases in health care will increase demand for ergonomic equipment and processes that prevent disabling musculoskeletal injuries. Those who embrace the future early, stand to gain the most.

Ford Using ‘Avatar’ Technology to Improve Auto Ergonomics

Ford is using Hollywood’s latest special effects gimmick to help design its cars and make them more ergonomic and driver friendly. You may have heard of motion-capture technology where a person’s body is hooked up to a slew of sensors that record individual muscle movements. It’s the revolutionary technology behind Hollywood director James Cameron’s sleek blue beings in the holiday movie hit Avatar. Ford Motor Co. has started using the same motion-capture technology to tweak the ergonomic design of its cars.

Since the early 1900s time-motion studies of ergonomics pioneers Frank and Lillian Gilbreth to movie-maker Cameron’s impressive high-tech sensors, industrial designers have been studying how workers move their bodies to accomplish different work tasks in an effort to create more efficient designs. Greater productivity may have been the early goal, but concern for worker health and safety has become an equally motivating challenge, one that gave birth to the field of ergonomics.

“Just like in the movies, we hook people up with sensors to understand exactly how they move when they are interacting with their vehicles,” Gary Strumolo, Ford manager of research and engineering, told Motor Trend magazine in a recent online article (click here to read the Motor Trend article and see pictures of the process). “Once we have all that motion captured, we create virtual humans that we can use to run thousands of tests that help us understand how people of all sizes and shapes interact with all kinds of vehicle designs. It’s an incredibly efficient way of engineering tomorrow’s vehicles.”

We may not have lithe blue aliens darting around our manufacturing plant, but DJ Products has long been a leader in the design and manufacture of ergonomic material handling carts and tugs. Long before James Cameron and Ford started sticking wired sensor pads on test subjects, DJ Products was investigating and studying how the body moved and applying it to material handling design. Nice to see the rest of the world starting to catch up!

Ergonomics Addresses Small & Large Features of Material Equipment Use

Some people think all material handling equipment is the same. They may notice that handles, controls, wheels, beds, connectors and other features differ from model to model but they don’t realize that even small differences in design can have a huge impact on how hard or easy a piece of material handling equipment is to use and whether it is likely to injure operators or minimize the risk of injury. Those small differences can add up to huge financial savings when material handling equipment is ergonomically designed to maximize ease of use and minimize risk of injury.

Workplace injuries cost U.S. businesses more than $60 billion annually and affect more than 1.75 million workers each year. A single back injury, which account for 50% of worker’s compensation claims, can cost a business $26,000 in time-lost costs. Utilizing ergonomically-designed material handling equipment to take the strain off workers’ backs during pushing, pulling and lifting activities can result in immediate savings.

When material handling equipment is ergonomically designed, every aspect of the piece of equipment and how it will be used is taken into consideration. Because workers come in all shapes and sizes, ergonomic engineers must consider a wide range of factors in designing equipment so that it can be comfortably used by a varied workforce. As you might expect, ergonomics addresses major design features such as the height of load beds, cart depths, angle of access, force requirements and other macro-design elements.

However, small, repetitive actions like twisting a handle often tax muscles and result in repetitive motion musculoskeletal injuries. Ergonomic engineers strive to address every element of equipment design from the width and angle of hand grips to the placement and shape of control buttons to the size and type of wheel. For more information on ergonomically-designed material handling equipment, visit the DJ Products website.