Ergonomics Metrics (Measureables) - Human factors engineering

[SteelMaiden]

Re: Ergonomics Metrics?

How can you be sure this isn't a short term gain that will slip back as people take their new chairs for granted?

Because, unless you are a flipping idiot, you continue to assess a change long enough to make sure you have made the right decision? Because eventually, you need to order new chairs and don't want to add the expense if the ergo chairs are not working? Why do you make it sound like every person in a managerial position is stupid and incompetent? (forget that, next you'll ask how I know that they are competent and that is a whole nother thread)

Testimonial evidence is always suspect. How was it demonstrated that those 15 visits were from workplace ergonomic factors? Could be stress. Could be hobbies (case in point - former company I was with won a workers comp case because the guy was a body builder and did even more repetetive motions outside of work).

well, if the 15 visits were all from one employee, I guess I wouldn't have
gone to all the work of trying to find ergo chairs for every employee.

This is why I actually perform root cause analysis. And, I guess that you could find someone who would tell you that the chair didn't help a bit, but then why have there absences and Dr. visits decreased? Remember, I said NOTHING else changed? I guess we would never know that the chairs were the reason, the ergo fairy could have come in during nap time and sprinkled everyone with magic ergo dust and caused all the pain to go away. The fact remains that we bought the chairs, unscheduled absences declined, and $ spent for Dr.'s visits declined. I am sorry, but that is probably be as concrete as you will ever get in a preventive action, why would you expect more for this?

What is a valid? I've argued morale issues with more than one plant manager "Show me the numbers!".

I am not talking moral here. If you are a manager or supervisor, you really need to be able to assess (or read) your people's level of satisfaction with some degree of accuracy. If you cannot, you are not much of a manager, are you? Once in a while, I might think everything is ok because someone is doing a fine job of putting on a good game face, but if the whole area is dissatisfied, I can usually catch on. I'm quick that way, it's a gift.

 

[ScottK]

Re: Ergonomics Metrics?

Because, unless you are a flipping idiot, you continue to assess a change long enough to make sure you have made the right decision? Because eventually, you need to order new chairs and don't want to add the expense if the ergo chairs are not working? Why do you make it sound like every person in a managerial position is stupid and incompetent? (forget that, next you'll ask how I know that they are competent and that is a whole nother thread)




well, if the 15 visits were all from one employee, I guess I wouldn't have
gone to all the work of trying to find ergo chairs for every employee.

This is why I actually perform root cause analysis. And, I guess that you could find someone who would tell you that the chair didn't help a bit, but then why have there absences and Dr. visits decreased? Remember, I said NOTHING else changed? I guess we would never know that the chairs were the reason, the ergo fairy could have come in during nap time and sprinkled everyone with magic ergo dust and caused all the pain to go away. The fact remains that we bought the chairs, unscheduled absences declined, and $ spent for Dr.'s visits declined. I am sorry, but that is probably be as concrete as you will ever get in a preventive action, why would you expect more for this?





I am not talking moral here. If you are a manager or supervisor, you really need to be able to assess (or read) your people's level of satisfaction with some degree of accuracy. If you cannot, you are not much of a manager, are you? Once in a while, I might think everything is ok because someone is doing a fine job of putting on a good game face, but if the whole area is dissatisfied, I can usually catch on. I'm quick that way, it's a gift.

I'm sorry - this was not meant to be a personal attack. It might seem that way because we're the only ones conversing right now, but it's not.
I believe improving ergonomics improves all the things you mentioned.

I'm being a devil's advocate based on arguments I've received in the past from various senior managers at facilities where I've worked. Guess I got sidetracked with that. It's a slow day here.

 

[SteelMaiden]

Re: Ergonomics Metrics?

Dis - I did not take it personally, I know what you are saying about devil's advocate and I cannot take a hypothetical personally. but there needs to be some common sense in evaluation of metrics, and too many times I hear arguments like the ones you used as devil's advocate. Some auditors just cannot seem (actually some people) cannot seem to understand that some of us actually know what we are doing (most of the time).

We all make mistakes, and we've all corrected the wrong problem somewhere along the line. Why is it in business, we are guilty until proven innocent? I do not think that is the intent of any of the standards. We are supposed to assess and find evidence that the requirements are being met. Not find evidence that requirements are not being met.

 

[potdar]

Re: Ergonomics Metrics?

Who is "they"?

I think my post was clear enough on this aspect. By 'they' I mean the auditees you have certified for QMS who dont contain the accidents or injuries among their Quality objectives. The point is just because something is legal, it doesn't become relevant metric.

Are you talking about industry in India? Or world wide?

I am talking world wide. If I am wrong, I will be happy to know about cases contrary to my experience in your part of the world. The advantages of being a global community. I believe you have been enjoying these for much longer than me.

This is not the first time that you have made what sounded like world wide negative judgements, perhaps you could share with us some biographical information, your resume, so to speak. I would like to learn a little about your qualifications in world affairs since you speak so authoritatively on them.

Oh yes, and I believed this discussion was meant to be of world wide relevance. Thats why I bothered to contribute. If I am wrong, again please enlighten me.

And then, lets withdraw from this discussion. OOPs sorry. I don't know enough about you to decide whether you are an authority on world wide affairs.

I considered mailing this privately, but here goes:

Mechanical Engineer with Masters in IE at NITIE, Mumbai - one of the institutes founded and aided by ILO. Ergonomics major.

Practiced IE, later QA with Tata Steel.

MR, Bearings Division, Tata Steel - among first 50 to be certified in India for ISO 900x.

MR, UGI, greenfield startup of Fortune 500 group in India, nursed upto ISO 9002.

Lead Auditor (Registration lapsed) ISO 9001, ISO 14001, QS 9000, TS 16949. Employee of DNV, RWTUV. Audits conducted in India, Middle East, ASEAN.

Third Party Surveyor, CE certifying authority (lapsed) Presure Vessel / Machinery Directives

Principal Consultant for Kaizen Institute, Geneva. - Workshops held for industries in India, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia till date. - I demonstrate, sell and teach Lean.

Practicing Consultant - Improvement techniques.

 

[potdar]

Re: Ergonomics Metrics?

Well, increase in efficiency...average time it takes to perform the task. lets say entering some "record" it used to take 3 hours to get the average days # entered, now it takes 2.5. # records did not change, no computer changes, etc. So we have improved effeciency by whatever it works out to be.

There were 15 visits to chiropractor 2 years ago, only 3 last year. You talk to the employees to see what improved. They all state that since you purchased new ergo chairs, they do not get hip and back pain. Their doctors agreed when they asked the same thing.

How do you measure mood and morale? Hopefully you and/or your frontline supervisors are assessing this kind of stuff all the time, couple with maybe an employee survey and records of missed days, you can surely manage to draw a few valid conclusions.

Your example seems to highlight my point perfctly well. Lets accept at the outset that all problems are due to a combination of multiple factors, so are all benefits achieved. That is the answer to the devil's advocate - the major gains have come due to ergonomic measures taken.

You have offered two metrics. Improved productivity and reduced downtime (thats the language of the bean counters and the plant managers). Measuring mood and morale is not really a feasible task.

Improved productivity is always a better metric than reduced downtime to measure the impact of the actions taken. Simply because there are many productivity hindering causes that wont result in downtime. Take them out, the productivity improves but there is no change in downtime.

I would again give you the same example which was drilled into our head as college students. Try punching your next post in using only one finger, then shift to using all fingers of the hand and then move to using both hands. See the change in productivity. See which metric would better reflect the gains made by this ergonomic improvement.

I hope the example applies globally. This was taught to us from some north american text book. (I just hope to God that I am politically correct this time and dont raise too many hackles. If this is likely to raise hackles and divert the discussion, I would request the moderators to censor.)

 

[Randy]

Re: Ergonomics Metrics?

That's all well and good, all those certifications and qualifications and such, but the subject is ergonomics as a metric.

Ergonomics is not a measurable in itself, it is an action, an activity, a field of study, a science or a management practice or whatever else you'd like to call it. The measurables related to ergonomics would be those that could be assigned to pre-ergonomic events or post-ergonomic events and the results of both.

Additionally the ergonomic time-frame necessary for the development of meaningful metrics would not be in hours, days or weeks, it would be in a year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years or such. There can be immediate or should term "effects" but the data coming out or developed from them could not realistically be considered vaild.

The measurement of mood and moral can be feasable and must be taken into consideration when productivity is discussed

 

[potdar]

Re: Ergonomics Metrics?

That's all well and good, all those certifications and qualifications and such, but the subject is ergonomics as a metric.

Ergonomics is not a measurable in itself, it is an action, an activity, a field of study, a science or a management practice or whatever else you'd like to call it. The measurables related to ergonomics would be those that could be assigned to pre-ergonomic events or post-ergonomic events and the results of both.

Additionally the ergonomic time-frame necessary for the development of meaningful metrics would not be in hours, days or weeks, it would be in a year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years or such. There can be immediate or should term "effects" but the data coming out or developed from them could not realistically be considered vaild.

The measurement of mood and moral can be feasable and must be taken into consideration when productivity is discussed

Thanks for being understanding, but that was no boasting or self advertisement. It was only in response to a specific query.

I dont however agree with you on the time frame element. Do a time study in the Industrial Engineer's shoes, the metrics can be measured in a space of minutes. There are methods available where human activity is broken down into elementary pieces of motion (acronym MOST). These pieces are measured in fractions of seconds.

Try typing as I have said. You can yourself establish it in a space of minutes. Then call in an IE to measure it for you.

 

[Randy]

Re: Ergonomics Metrics?

I dont however agree with you on the time frame element. Do a time study in the Industrial Engineer's shoes, the metrics can be measured in a space of minutes. There are methods available where human activity is broken down into elementary pieces of motion (acronym MOST). These pieces are measured in fractions of seconds.

With this last bit you've indicated that you have little or no concept of what "ergonomics" is. Your talking time motion studies and an approach that was studied and developed by Frank Bunker Gilbreth and his wife Lillian back in the early 1920's or so. In essence modify behavior related to a task to reduce the amount of time necessary to perform the task.

Ergonomics in a nutshell is the modifying and studying of the modification of the workplace to suit the physiological needs of the worker, and can be considered a sub-set of the Human Factors Engineering field.

The effects of ergonomic change are more long term than short and many times extremely subtle.

Two entirely different things.

 

[kiwisfly]

Re: Ergonomics Metrics?

Hi heasx2004

The terms Ergonomics and Human Factors are used synonomously throughout literature and even this forum. If I could offer a suggestion, following Reason's model for accident and incident causation, you are able to get the root causes based on what Reason terms Active, System and Organisational Failures. Reason argues that the problem with our investigations into events is that we tend to blame individuals when the system or even the organisation left latent errors or ommissions in place within a system for an individual to find. The individual's (or active) failure is normally the final act that allowed all events to occur in the correct sequence to cause the accident. Reason likens it to a row of swiss cheese slices, at some point, all of the holes in the swiss cheese allow an event to pass right through all layers (the cheese) of defence.

If you wanted to review past incidents or non-conformances (safety, quality or business related) at your company you could devise some metrics relating to the ergonomics (or human factors) as a significant cause of the event. EG number of active failures (corrected by training etc..) number of systems failuers (corrected by procedural or process change) and even better, number of organisational changes (changes in policy or structure) that led to past events.

I believe this would make a useful contribution to a Lean project. Reason's book "Managing Risks of Organisational Accidents" is a great read and I recommend it to all Cove dwellers.

Cheers

 

[potdar]

Re: Ergonomics Metrics?

With this last bit you've indicated that you have little or no concept of what "ergonomics" is. Your talking time motion studies and an approach that was studied and developed by Frank Bunker Gilbreth and his wife Lillian back in the early 1920's or so. In essence modify behavior related to a task to reduce the amount of time necessary to perform the task.

Ergonomics in a nutshell is the modifying and studying of the modification of the workplace to suit the physiological needs of the worker, and can be considered a sub-set of the Human Factors Engineering field.

The effects of ergonomic change are more long term than short and many times extremely subtle.

Two entirely different things.

The OP probably didnt expect us to get into the technicalities of ergonomics. Ergonomics as a separate subject started with the early 20th century Alexander technique which concerned itself with the HARM aspect of POOR ERGONOMIC DESIGN of workplace.

It has moved much beyond that since then. In addition to harm, now the USEFULNESS of GOOD ERGONOMIC DESIGN of workplace is under focus. Definitely more so where Lean principles are concerned.

Time study is definitely not ergonomics. It is only a tool to measure the benefits in terms of productivity brought in by any action (here ergonomic improvement). The reference was just in relation to the metric and the time frame aspect of the discussion.

If the OP is still with the thread, I think it is time for him to come in and re-state his exact query.