Tag: manufacturing

The Risk of MSDs from Tasks That Add No Value to the Product

Yesterday, we looked at the potential ergonomic pitfalls of lean manufacturing. Today, we look at the flip side: “non-value-added tasks.” What if you could reduce your manufacturing costs, improve productivity, and prevent ergonomic injuries all at once? Sound too good to be true? It may not be, according to Chris Shulenberger, Certified Professional Ergonomist with […]

Lean Manufacturing: When More Efficiency Leads to Aching Backs

“Don’t let your lean manufacturing become anorexic,” says Certified Professional Ergonomist Chris Shulenberger, M.S. Engr., and Technical Director for Ergonomics with Bureau Veritas North America. If you do, you’ll pay the price. Over the last decade, many manufacturers have embraced “lean manufacturing,” a strategy to eliminate wasted time, motion, and storage by streamlining production, altering […]

Electrical Safety FAQs

In today’s Advisor we focus on some frequently asked questions about electrical safety, with answers provided by OSHA. What causes electrical shocks? Electricity travels in closed circuits, normally through a conductor. But sometimes a person’s body—an efficient conductor of electricity—mistakenly becomes part of the electric circuit. This can cause an electrical shock. Shocks occur when […]

Correcting Safety Problems Before They Cause Accidents

Yesterday, we featured strategies for investigating workplace accidents. Today, we focus on methods for correcting safety problems before they cause accidents. There are two common procedures for identifying and correcting safety problems: change analysis and job safety analysis (also known as job hazard analysis or safety analysis). Change Analysis To solve a problem using the […]

Three Good Reasons to Emphasize Lockout/Tagout Rules

Three fatality reports from NIOSH illustrate the importance of emphasizing lockout/tagout rules. Reason 1  A 25-year-old worker at a concrete pipe manufacturing facility died from injuries received while cleaning a ribbon-type concrete mixer. The victim’s daily tasks included cleaning out the concrete mixer at the end of the shift. The clean-out procedure was to shut […]