eme european month of ergonomics 2013 – ergonomics for risk prevention – 08.07.2013 european...

EME European Month of Ergonomics 2013 – Ergonomics for risk prevention – 08.07.2013

European Month of Ergonomics October 2013

Ergonomics for risk prevention

This presentation is updated for the 2013 from the campaign material of the 2012


What is European Month of Ergonomics?

- European Month of Ergonomics (EME) is the yearly campaign for promotion of ergonomics in Europe

- European Month of Ergonomics is initiated by the FEES, Federation of European Ergonomics Societies, and implemented by the national ergonomics societies

- The Federation of European Ergonomics Societies is now an official partner of the EU-OSHA, European Agency for Safety and Health at Work

- European Month of Ergonomics 2012 and 2013 support the yearly Healthy Workplace -campaign of the EU-OSHA. In 2012-2013 the topic of this campaign is:

Working together for risk prevention

- European Month of Ergonomics 2012 and 2013 focuses on the role of ergonomics in risk prevention, with the topic:

Ergonomics for risk prevention


-EU-OSHA campaign Working together for risk prevention is directed to reduce the high number of work-related accidents and diseases in the EU. According to yearly statistics:- 5500 people die as a result of accidents in the workplace- 159 000 people die as a result of occupational diseases- at least 450 million work days are lost

for more information of the campaign, see www.healthy-workplaces.eu

EU-OSHA campaign


-EU-OSHA campaign calls for active collaboration between all personnel groups in enterprises to prevent risks in the workplace. The main elements of the campaign are:

(1) To encourage managers to show leadership in safety and health by genuinely consulting their workforce and by following best available risk prevention strategies

(2) To encourage workers and their representatives to share ideas and to actively work with their managers to improve safety and health for all

EU-OSHA campaign


European Month of Ergonomics 2012 - 2013

- The European Month of Ergonomics 2012 was mainly an introduction to the topic, highlighting the role of ergonomics in risk prevention

- This year European Month of Ergonomics 2013 the discussion can be broadened to practical applications, research and development projects, cases studies, methods etc.

- The aim of the European Month of Ergonomics 2013 is to encourage discussion and collaboration between ergonomics experts, safety experts, occupational health and safety authorities, and personnel of the enterprises, to consider the knowledge and methods of ergonomics in risk prevention

- This presentation is supportive material for lectures, training events, seminars or written articles to disseminate the message of the European Month of Ergonomics by the national member societies of the Federation of European Ergonomics Societies.


What is ergonomics?

- Ergonomics provides the knowledge and skills for fitting the environment, equipment and activities to people (for IEA1 definition of ergonomics, see http://ergonomics-fees.eu)

- The dual aims are both to improve well-being of people and to enhance productivity of systems

- For practical application of ergonomics, the following subfields are identified:

- physical ergonomics – e.g. postures and movements, physical workload, manual material handling, workplace design

- cognitive ergonomics – e.g. information processing, mental workload, human-computer interface, applications for transmitting information

- organizational ergonomics – e.g. consideration of work organization, work processes and working hours, development of work activity

- Ergonomics is a central discipline and development tool to create good work environments - and also to prevent risks in the workplace!

1 IEA – International Ergonomics Association, www.iea.cc


Ergonomics: human capabilities and human work activity in design

Ergonomics focuses on human work activity and the capabilities of humans – it can provide a genuinely preventive approach to the design and construction of our environment and equipment.

Ergonomics is ideally applied in all stages of design and realization – this contributes to the comprehensive and proper consideration of humans – not only retrospective correcting of errors.


Ergonomics: collaboration and participation

Application of ergonomics means profound collaboration of all stakeholders at the workplace: the management, designers, OHS experts, supervisors and workers. A participatory and collaborative approach is presently seen as necessary to take all aspects of human activity and production into account. This is parallel to the approach of the EU-OSHA campaign.

Participatory ergonomics has for long been a central approach among ergonomists. Ergonomists have experience which can be utilized in the EU-OSHA campaign.


Risks associated to ergonomics

Work activity which is not well suited to people's capabilities canlead to injuries and accidents, e.g.:

- Physical overload (e.g. heavy work, lifting) can lead to fatigue, strain injuries and to accidents

- Repetitive work and poor postures can lead to musculoskeletal disorders and to strain injuries

- Mental overload can lead to psychological stress and to accidents


Criteria for assessing work activity

The basic criteria for assessing the work activity in order tomaintain the wellbeing of the worker are as follows:

1. Health must not be impaired

2. The task characteristics must be within the normal range of the worker's size, strength and mental capabilities, taking the physiological constraints (e.g. body measurements) and the psychological constraints (e.g. information processing) into account

3. The tasks must not make undue demands over the duration of a whole shift and ideally over the whole working life, taking both the gradual effects of adverse factors (e.g. heavy physical load or psychological stress) and the ageing of the workforce into account

4. The tasks should facilitate the scope for professional development (e.g. competences)

5. The tasks should be designed and developed in collaboration with the workers


"Ergonomic risks" are related to poor design

A great many of the risks in the workplace can be attributed to poorergonomic design, e.g.:

- Poor ergonomic design of jobs and tasks can lead to physiological and psychological stress, to dissatisfaction, and to accidents

- Poor ergonomic design of the machinery and its interface can lead to human errors and to severe accidents

- Poor ergonomic design of physical work environment (lighting, thermal, acoustic) can lead to various negative influences, directly on the human and also on the working behavior

Therefore it is essential to influence the design of the production andproduction technology – this can be done in good collaborationbetween the different personnel groups of the enterprise


"Ergonomic risks" need also to be continuously monitored

In the workplace many changes take place continuously – alsocontinuous checking and improvements are needed

- The ergonomics evaluation of the work activity and working environment is natural for the worker, who has best experience of his/her own work

- Ergonomics checklists can be used to support and systemize the ergonomic evaluation of the workplace

- Often this requires contribution of the OHS experts

- The representatives of management and design need to support these evaluations, and also to gather the experiences to make the needed improvements to the workplace


Ergonomics risk assessment is the responsibility of many

Actually, risk assessment related to ergonomics has to be made in many stages and by many actors, e.g.:

- By the designers of the machinery and production systems

- By those who commission the systems – by setting the requirements and by giving the necessary information from the design objective

- By the buyers of the work equipment – by acquiring e.g. ergonomic and usable working tools and other work equipment

- By the management who require good working conditions, and who follow the realization of the systems

- By the maintenance experts who ensure that the workplace is functioning and continues to function as planned

- By the OHS personnel as a part of their workplace surveys

- By the supervisors who follow the work daily

- By the workers who follow the safety instructions and make decisions on the ways to work in the new situations


Participatory ergonomics – a beneficial approach

Workers participation in design has many direct and indirectbenefits:

- user's experience and designers' views are combined – the solution meets comprehensive requirements: production related, health and well-being related, safety related, etc.

- the design process is a learning process for both designers and users

- the workers are more motivated as operators of the system

- the designers and managers are alerted to the problems of the use

- the implementation and start-up of the system is less problematic

- the process flows smoothly – fewer retrospective corrections

- the potential hazards and risks are identified during the design process

- the identification and managing of the risks is easier for all in the changing situations at the workplace


Participatory ergonomics requires various preconditions

Workers participation requires management, resources, methodsand means:

- guidance for the design sessions (a devoted leader/facilitator)

- resources for the participative design sessions (time, places)

- illustrative design methods (scenarios, graphical task descriptions, illustrative drawings, photos, videos)

- methods to discuss the design problem (e.g. various wall-board and group techniques)

- methods and means to test the designs (prototyping, improvised prototypes, utilization of existing work arrangements)

There are many roles and tasks for the managers, supervisors andOHS experts to support the participatory design process, and toorganize the design events


Participatory ergonomics – a sensitive skill

Workers participation requires extra skills to identify possibleproblems:

- the workers tend to favor conventional solutions in their choices, if they are not convinced of the new ones

- the workers' experience is practical – complex relationships between the causes and consequences are not always obvious for them

- the risks of gradual effects of e.g. exposure of noise or stress or other factors that do not cause pain or discomfort may not be obvious for them

- the "non visible" hazards which are the result of a complex process or multiple factors may not be obvious for them

The role of the leader/facilitator is to gather experience, investigatethe design problem, guide the participants, and to develop consensus solutions in collaboration with them – truly a demandingand sensitive skill


Ergonomic guidelines are the basis for risk prevention

Collaboration and participation is essential but not enough – ergonomics guidelines are also needed for proper risk prevention!

Ergonomics guidelines are presented in European ergonomics (and safety)

standards1, e.g.:

- ergonomics design principles (EN 614-1, EN 614-2 and EN ISO 6385)

- acceptable postures and forces (EN-1005-series)

- anthropometric workplace measurement (EN ISO 14738)

- access openings, for the whole body and body parts (EN 547-series)

- presentation of information (EN 894-series, parts in 9241 series)

- human work activities in regard to human cognition (EN 894-series)

- human work activities in order to control mental workload (EN ISO 10075-series)

- environmental factors (lighting, temperature etc.) (e.g. EN 12464, EN ISO 11399)

- passageways and stairs (EN ISO 14122-series)1 standards are distributed by the national associations for standardization

- for the list of EN ergonomics standards, see also

http://www.cen.eu/cen/Sectors/TechnicalCommitteesWorkshops/CENTechnicalCommittees/Pages/Standards.aspx?param=6104&title=CEN/TC%20122


A step further: development of the design and management practices

For consideration of humans and for creating good workplaces, design practices need to be systematically improved, e.g.:

- design goals of the production system should explicitly include consideration of humans

- collaboration should include all groups which affect the ergonomics quality of workplaces: from product designers (manufacturability) to various groups of production designers, managers, supervisors, OHS experts and workers

- information concerning the design of the production system should be open and reach all groups involved

- relevant ergonomics knowledge and guidelines should be easily available for the designers throughout the design process

- design methods should include, besides technical descriptions, also visualization of the human work activity

- feedback from the functioning of the workplace (e.g. the results of the surveys of OHS personnel) should reach the responsible designers


Ergonomics in production design: good for the health and good for the business

By the application of ergonomics in design, the production systems andworkplaces can be improved for both the operator and the organization:

- better satisfaction, motivation and commitment of the operator

- lower rate of accidents and fewer sickness absences

- less disturbances and losses in production due to human error

- better quality, less careless work

- fluent operation, right operations in the correct way, with minimum effort

- less need for corrections later, less costs of late changes

By recognition of both the health and business benefits ofergonomics the management can be justifiably engaged in the comprehensive development of workplaces 1

1 see Jan Dul, Ralph Bruder, Peter Buckle, Pascale Carayon, et al. (2012): A strategy for human factors/ergonomics: developing the discipline and profession, Ergonomics, 2012, DOI:10.1080/00140139.2012.661087, http://www.tandfonline.com/terg


- After the European Month of Ergonomics 2013, please gather information on the actions related to the EME (events, articles, initiatives, etc.) realized in your country

- This information will be used to develop future European Month of Ergonomics campaigns and, to share the experiences within the national societies of the FEES

- PLEASE REPORT this information to the Communication and Promotion Committee of the FEES, to

Martti Launis [email protected] or Gyula Szabó [email protected]

Experiences of the European Month of Ergonomics 2013


Thank you

Let us work together for risk prevention – ergonomists together with OHS specialists and with the personnel of the workplaces!

Let us show the potential of ERGONOMICS in risk prevention!

Thank you for your interest!

The FEES-campaign European Month of Ergonomics to promote ergonomics in Europe

FEES – Federation of European Ergonomics Societies

http://ergonomics-fees.eu

eme european month of ergonomics 2013 – ergonomics for risk prevention – 08.07.2013 european...

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