If you have been following along with our current blog series about establishing a ergonomics management program in your organization, you know a little bit about Shewhart’s cycle of continuous improvement.

With Shewhart, you have to Plan a process for improvement, then Do the work to put the Plan in place, then you have to Check on your progress and note adjustments, then you have to Act on any new recommendations or changes. We’ve been exploring this in the last couple of blog posts of this current series, based off an article about ergonomics management in a recent issue of Professional Safety magazine.

The authors – Walter Rostykus, Winnie Ip and Jennifer Ann Dustin – have been establishing that ergonomics is more than just equipment, and was developing a framework for mamnanging ergonomics to reduce or eliminate many risk factors for musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs).

The last part of the Shewhart cycle is Act, and that is where this blog series takes us – acting on the evaluation of the ergonomics management process that is in place, and how to go through continuous improvement, as the cycle dictates.

The Act step of the cycle is the response to the Check step, which was the evaluation and assessment of the Do step to determine the veracity and validity of the ergonomics program that was implemented. Part of the assessment should provide plenty of data about the MSD incidents that have occurred, areas of improvement in the process and the strengths of the process as specific as the workstation and as general as the entire organization and the specifics within the overall process.

The goal of compilng this data is to note areas of change and to address risks and hazards that still exist so as to keep incidents from occurring again. This includes any areas of non-compliance to the process and develops an action plan to correct the problem and ensure better compliance with the ergonomics management process.

The Act step is the most vital in the cycle, as this step sets up the ergonomics management process to undergo continuous improvement. After taking action, the cycle implies that the organization revolves back to the initial Plan step and updates the plan according to what was learned the first time, then the process goes through the Do, Check and Act steps again, demonstrating continual learning and improvement to get your organization closer to the goals established in the Plan step.

In order to keep up the process of improvement, the authors encourage several items:

  • The right controls and actions that prevent MSD injuries are ensured by management, and a target is set to be as small as feasible. Those on the front lines will need to be aware of remaining risk factors should the MSD incident rate not be eliminated in the first go-around.
  • Have risk-reducing controls applied to every similar work technique and workstation throught the organization.
  • Provide the resources needed to ensure that workers find and address risks whenever they see them.
  • Include ergonomics in the regular business check-up, ensuring the progress of the ergonomics process with a manager’s regular “rounds” through a department or the organization.
  • Employ members of all levels of the organization to assess, observe and address MSD risks as part of daily operations work. The sooner these risks are noted and addressed, the safer the workers will be.

For more information, pay a visit to Professional Safety magazine on its website and track the subject “ergonomics management” to find this article and learn more details about how to implement an ergonomics management process in your organization.