Industrial Ergonomics
Health and Safety by Design
Participative ergonomics is a dynamic, proactive method to ensure continual improvement of the tasks that are meaningful to workers. The participative process of ergonomics contributes to workplace productivity, health, well-being, business unit integration, and safety. This process involves identifying tasks for (re)design; identifying hazards and analysing risks; determining design opportunities, concepts, strategies, and features; develop and design new task, equipment, or system features (controls); trial and evaluate design changes; (re)design if needed; analyse cost and payback and design objectives; confirm new work practices; and communicate and celebrate results. Viva! Health at Work represents ErgoAnalyst as a solution for a cloud-based manual task risk management system.
Detailed analysis of hierarchical job performance task demands (refer to job and task analysis – risk based, below). This study will include review of worker population and work capacity, work flow methods, environment, and operational requirements. Skill application of ergonomics and human factors risk tools and systems to identify hazard and risks – e.g. hazardous conditions with exposure to hazardous manual tasks, whole body vibration hand-arm vibration, severe thermal conditions, uneven terrain, chemicals, heavy equipment, pinch-point, fire, explosions, equipment roll-over, traffic, or collision. Risks are identified and determined through collaborative work analysis and these may include sprain and strain; slips, trips and falls from ground or at height; chemical or heat burns; impact injuries; fatalities or severe disablement. This process encourages team review to develop control strategy trials according to a hierarchy of top-tier controls with interventions for elimination, substitution, isolation, or engineering redesign.
Design for ranges of optimum human performance capability; we provide skilled consulting service to help industrial design and engineering professionals consider a range of human factors - cognitive, behaviour, and physical attributes of a work population - to ensure best practice design consideration according to task performance requirements; we advise, also, for after-market design evaluation of plant and equipment according to task performance requirements, reference to relevant ISO standards; These services support cognitive and system-based engineering process. We employ techniques such as Design-OMAT: Design for Operability and Maintainability Analysis Technique.
A job analysis is a human-centred orientation of understanding work and its impact to, or requirements of, the worker. They end-product document may support recruitment, job description development, pre-employment functional screening, fit-for-work assessment, occupational rehabilitation, and competency training. The findings and the process of job review support safety management teams in efforts to identify hazard trends, enhance a management program, and aid to task re-design. Biomechanical determination for acute or cumulative injury risk can be included in the analysis. The process provides for effective safety leadership and a culture of awareness.
Job Analysis: provides for the analysis of the work demands of tasks inherent in a job role: biomechanics (and bio tensegrity movement patterns); hazard exposure; human factors (decision making, heuristics, knowledge, skills, abilities, inter/intrapersonal skills, situation awareness, tactics); environmental conditions; interface with equipment, tools, materials and supplies; and hierarchical task flow.
Job Capacity Checklist: an encapsulation of the most salient features of the job role: a summary of most significant job requirements. Document use: typically for medical providers to consider for occupational rehabilitation review of a worker and their ability to return to full duties. May be used for review in functional capacity evaluations, also.
We help define metrics that matter most for organizational success – productivity, safety, and positive culture. We help you formulate strategy that can be embedded in your leadership systems - define work knowledge, skills, abilities, activities and outcomes for transparent and strategic leadership, and help create work that is meaningful for those that perform it, by involving workers and helping take them beyond engagement – empowering work teams to become architects of their performance goals.
We facilitate study success groups to encourage learning from that which improves the organisation and optimises productivity, creativity, leadership, and loyalty.
Control Rooms are where people monitor the pulse of technical operations. They are a centre for emergency management, production oversight and management, and security. They represent the vital organs – the brain, heart, and lungs of many complex technical production sites where environmental management is equally a concern to productivity. Typically these centres operate 24/7/365. It is essential that operators are able to work in an effective and efficient manner to achieve optimum work performance – they must be able to respond to that which is most important at the right time, every time.
Human Factors Design and Control Room Ergonomics involves collaborative work analysis to best determine operator needs and the essential functions of the control room.
Office Ergonomics
Create Environments in Which You Thrive
(Sometimes referred to in business as ergonomic assessments)
For work at a computer workstation: identify human performance needs and task demands and set up the workstation to optimise work activity and minimize aches, pain, niggles, headaches or strain. We provide group training, 1:1 assessment, early intervention, workplace group screening and training.
We identify human performance needs and task demands and provide advice for fit outs and design. We highly recommend involving a Certified Professional Ergonomist early in team design considerations as opposed to post-occupancy review for the best possible outcomes. Our level of involvement may include advice for workstation equipment and furnishings procurement or parameters for design consideration, lighting, ventilation, workflow practice, and training. New Release: We offer value-added on-line, interactive, animated gaming training for workstation set-up to help address a majority of needs for workers at new hire, to accompany a fit-out, or for early workplace screening and compliance.
Australian employees average four health risk factors per person. Office Workers have been identified as one of the most sedentary occupational groups and this represents over 12% of the general workforce.
With economic growth, technological advancement, and sociocultural changes, physical activity has declined and sedentary behaviours have increased (sitting at work, watching television, and playing computer games, for example).
Queensland Workplace Health and Safety reports that adding movement to our days (LIPA) can provide benefit in terms of: reducing risk for musculoskeletal discomfort (particularly the lower back and neck), lowering the risk of developing coronary heart disease, lowering the risk of developing diabetes, reducing eye strain and fatigue, improving circulation overall, and improving the functioning of the digestive tract . In a study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA): Internal Medicine, it was concluded that “prolonged sitting is a risk factor for all-cause mortality, independent of physical activity. Public health programs should focus on reducing sitting time in addition to increasing physical activity levels”.
A general public health recommendation has been made to alternate sitting activity every 20 to 30 minutes with an alternate task involving moving, standing, and/or walking to improve health behaviours. It is suggested that this may aid enzymatic activity to help regulate blood fats and sugars that are released as muscles contract during standing and moving.
Under guidance of a Certified Professional Ergonomist, our consultant trainers provide design and work method advice to optimise activity at work. We can set up workplace design studies with bio-feedback systems with tri-axial accelerometers and metabolic rate measures to help your workforce directly learn and feel the benefits of low-impact physical activity at work.
To help workplaces achieve Green Star Ergonomics Credit for Office Interiors and remain compliant with Work Health Safety Act 2011, the Queensland Hazardous Manual Tasks Code of Practice 2011 and the Queensland How to Manage Work Health and Safety Risks Code of Practice 2011, we may review work practice with consideration of applicable design standards. These standards provide recommendations for office furnishings, workstation, storage, space in interior design, input devices and accessories.
The Green Star Ergonomics Credit for Office Interiors is designed to recognise the provision of equipment and spaces that provide optimum levels of comfort to users and that avoid stress and injury. Fit-outs and projects may be awarded this credit when they take ergonomics and comfort into consideration when designing or selecting furniture and other items.
An office workstation training module using immersive, interactive on-line game technology. The main character, Jessie, is a hard-working finance assistant. However, with poor workstation set up, the harder Jessie works the more she is unhappy, sore, slouched, and visibly fatigued. Everything is wrong about her workstation ergonomics! Participants learn the fundamentals of sound workstation set-up and have the opportunity to arrange Jessie’s office workstation equipment so that her work postures and movements improve, her symptoms resolve, and she is a happier, productive worker! Make a wrong move and watch Jessie’s agitation grow...
This is a perfect, short, snappy, fun and interactive learning media that organisations may introduce to their employees to meet safety training obligations for new hire and annual screening. Managers receive real-time reporting to know which worker has engaged with the training, whether they learned anything new, made any changes to their own workstation, and their levels of satisfaction with the module. If worker discomfort symptoms are unresolved the business can make a decision for referral for customised expert assessment from a health or safety professional of their choice.