By now you have learned to make a plan. But you also know that a plan doesn’t work when it’s just on paper or in our heads.

We have to just do it – execute on that plan.

That is especially important in safety management programs in your workplace, even if you are in the relatively new world of ergonomics management. Having the equipment necessary to ensure good ergonomics when workers do their jobs is certainly welcome, but the work doesn’t stop there. It’s about having that equipment as part of a broader safety management system geared toward ergonomics.

An author triumvirate of Walter Rostykus, Winnie Ip and Jennifer Ann Dustin wrote a recent Professional Safety magazine article about an ergonomics management system for a workplace, based on the draft standard known as ISO 45001. I have used a series of posts, starting here, to cover this article with some depth. As I have always believed ergonomics to be important for worker safety, I have taken great care to break down Shewhart’s cycle of continuous improvement and how ISO 45001 can be applied in that cycle as well as in ergonomics in general.

The last blog post dealt with the first part of Shewhart’s cycle (plan, do, check, act), and now we will touch on the second part of the cycle.

Once you’ve developed the Plan step of  Shewhart’s cycle of continuous improvement, you have to take the theory of the Plan and put it into action with the Do. In this step, you execute the plan and put into action the steps to mitigate musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in the workplace, which may well mean making some changes to the workplace itself so the environment better promotes safety. This can be done in three ways, whiche we’ll discuss next.

First, there is in support. This describes each team member (from the C-suite on down) making a commitment of time and/or funding to provide support to the ergonomics improvement process throughout the workplace. For those who are involved in the process, it is generally requested that a successful process occurs when workers commit one to eight hours per month toward ergonomics improvements. Part of this support can be achieved with employees who are skilled and have competencies with ergonomics and can pass knowledge and skills to others. Much of this can be done through training, of which there are two types:

  • Skills training has to do with preparing workers for ergonomics improvement, developing skills and tools to conduct assessments about ergonomics and to evaluate and control MSD risks and hazards.
  • Awareness training is about giving workers the information they need to be observant of actions or behaviors that may lead to an enhanced risk of an MSD. This is something that any worker can do as they work their shifts to support co-workers and encourage ergonomics compliance.

Outside of the training, there always should be effective and proactive communication throughout the organization, and it should occur at two levels over two time periods (monthly, quarterly, whatever you decide). The first level should be to the upper levels of the organization (C-suite, managers, etc.) to get buy-in for this ergonomics improvement process. Once that has occurred, the communication then moves down and across the organization, from supervisors and the rank-and-file in one division across to all departments, with peers used significantly in training and championing the process.

To track the process, effective detailed information should be provided, which include records of all the skills and awareness training conducted and the participants; process audit results; implementing controls, and a metric to measure the reduction of risks that the controls have achieved., among others.

Second, there is Doing in operations. This has to do with design and engineering of the workplace to reduce MSD risks. To implement effective ergonomics, the workplace will necessarily have to change, and the important work will be engineering and designing the space to accommodate this. The safest workplace is one that is changed for ergonomics, instead of trying to force ergonomics into a static workplace. Much of the benefit of this can be seen in cost-effectiveness of the workplace in these ways:

  • A 60- to 100-percent reduction in exposure to MSD risks;
  • A 40- to 60-percent reduction in risk exposure levels;
  • A 20- to 40-percent reduction in exposure time; and
  • A 10- to 20-percent reduction in reliance on behaviors.

Third, there is a Do in evaluating performance. Of course, it is common sense that when a new process is implemented, there should be a mechanism to evaluate and assess the performance of the system so adjustments can be made to improve the process. This should happen at three levels – at the individual workstations/work areas, across the entire process (all departments), and in the way the organization responds to MSD injuires or incidents.

At the individual workstation, conduct an “after” risk assessment using the same metrics used during the Plan step (call that the ” before” score). This is one way to measure the effectivness of ergonomics by determining if the risk factor score is better after ergonomics was introduced, and if not, why not? In this process, be as specific as you can in terms of the controls that were implemented to find the changes (such as, measure risk factors if a work surface is raised or lowered, or if a different chair is installed).

At the second, broader level, the assessment should go back to the Plan step and evaluate whether the goals and objectives in the Plan step are being met, or if there is some progress toward those goals. This is a way to look at those goals, see if there needs to be changes, and to find areas that are effective and those that still need improvement.

Next, we’ll presume the Check step is done after Do, and we’ll go into the Act step of Stewhart’s cycle of continuous improvement and how it releates to ergonomics management.