MODULE : 2

ERGONOMICS AT
WORK PLACE

1
Ergonomics at Work Place:

Ergonomics, Task analysis, Preventing Ergonomic Hazards, Work space Envelops, Visual Ergonomics, Ergonomic Standards,
Ergonomic Programs.
Hazard cognition and Analysis,
Human Error Analysis – Fault Tree Analysis –
Emergency Response - Decision for action – purpose and considerations.

2
 Ergonomics
The word ergonomics is derived from the Greek language.
Ergon – Work
Nomos – laws
Therefore, in a literal science, ergonomics means work
laws, it consists of the scientific principles applied in
minimizing the physical stress associated with the
workplace

3
 Why is ergonomic important?

Implementing ergonomic solutions can make employees

more comfortable and increase productivity.

Why is ergonomics important?

Ergonomics is important because when you're doing a job
and your body is stressed by an awkward posture, extreme
temperature, or repeated movement your musculoskeletal
system is affected.
4
Benefits of ergonomics
 Improved health and safety for workers
 Higher morale throughout the workplace
 Improved quality
 Improved productivity
 Decreased absenteeism and turnover
 Fewer workplace injuries/health problems
 different types of ergonomics

•Physical Ergonomics.
•Cognitive Ergonomics. ...
•Organizational Ergonomics.

6
 Factors associated with
physical stress
 Sitting versus standing
 Stationary versus moveable/mobile
 Large demand for strength/power versus small
demand for strength/power
 Good horizontal work area versus bad horizontal work
area
 Good vertical work area versus bad vertical work area
 Non-repetitive motion versus repetitive motion
 Low surface versus high surface contact
 Environmental factors
Ergonomics in occupational Health
and safety
 At work ergonomics is applied to the design
and tasks and to work organization.
 It is often referred to as occupational
ergonomics within the OHS community.
 As such it aims to promote health, efficiency
and wellbeing in employees by designing for
safe, satisfying and productive work.
 Elements in occupational
ergonomics
 The worker
 job/task design
 Work environment
 Equipment design
 Work organization
 [Link]
Ergonomic task analysis
 Task analysis is a method of breaking
a piece of work down into smaller
elements and examining the
relationship between the elements.
The types of problems that can be identified by a thorough task analysis are:
 Task that involve potentially hazardous movements
 Tasks that involve frequent manual lifting
 Tasks that involve excessive wasted motion or energy
 Tasks that are part of poor operations flow
 Tasks that require unnatural or uncomfortable posture
 Tasks with high potential for psychological stress
 Task with a high fatigue factor
 Tasks that could or should be automated
 Tasks that involve or lead to quality control problems
 General observations
 Questionnaires and interviews
 Videotaping and photography
 Drawing and sketching
 Measuring the work environment
 Understanding the ergonomics of
aging
Need for task analysis
 Thegoal of task analysis is to allow a
systematic comparison between the
capabilities of a work system and the
demands of the work such that
design requirements are discovered.
Phases of task analysis

 Data collection

 Task description

 Task analysis
General levels of analysis to guide
method selection

 Computational level

 Algorithmic level

 Implementation level
Hierarchical task
analysis (HTA)
Hierarchical task analysis refers to
ideas developed by Annett and
Duncan in the late 1960s and is
suggested as a framework for task
analysis.
Goals, operators, methods and selection
rules (GOMS)

 With GOMS, the aim of the analysis is to create

a complete description of experienced users
procedural knowledge and their representation
of the task.
 This procedural knowledge is described in
terms of goals, operations, methods and
selection rules and is represented in a
production system as the underlying cognitive
architecture.
 Human – Technology –
Organisation (HTO)
 The concept was initially developed for
improving nuclear power plant safety, but
has over time acquired a wider application.
 The conceptual idea of HTO is that work
activities can often be described, analyzed
and understood by describing the
interactions between the three sub-system
i.e human, technology and organization.
 Ergonomic hazards in the workplace

Ergonomic hazards include repetitive and

forceful movements, vibration, temperature
extremes, and awkward postures that arise
from improper work methods and improperly
designed workstations, tools, and equipment

22
effect of ergonomic hazards?

Ergonomic hazards affect all workers (as well as

their families) and industries and businesses of
all sizes. Poor workplace design, repetitive
movements, awkward body mechanics or
postures, and other hazards produce or
contribute to a staggering number of disabling
cumulative trauma illnesses and injuries.

23
How can ergonomic hazards be prevented?

There are many ways to reduce ergonomic risk

factors and help fit the workplace to the worker.
Solutions can be grouped into three main
categories: eliminate the hazard, improve work
policies and procedures, and provide personal
protective equipment. Often the best solution
involves a combination of approaches.

24
Ergonomic hazard prevention and
control
Ergonomic improvements are changes
made to improve the fit between a job and
the capabilities of the employees
performing it. They are commonly grouped
into three categories
 Engineering improvements
 Administrative improvements
 Safety gear
Engineering
improvements
 Workstation design

 Design of work methods

 Tool design and handles

Administrative
improvements
 Providing variety in jobs
 Adjusting work schedules and workspace
 Providing recovery time
 Modifying work practices
 Ensuring regular housekeeping and
maintenance of workplaces
 Encouraging exercise
Safety gear
 PPEincludes gloves, knee and elbow
pads, footwear and other items that
employees wear.
 Workspace envelope
A 'workspace envelope' is a 3-dimensional space
within which you carry out physical work activities
when you are at a fixed location. The limits of the
envelope are determined by your functional arm
reach which, in turn, is influenced by the direction
of reach and the nature of the task being
performed

30
Seated workspace
 The maximum work area is the area
within comfortable reach of
extended arm, while the normal work
area is within the limits of a
comfortable sweeping movement of
arm, with elbow bent at a right angle
or less.
Standing workspace
 Standing reach is a matter of body
equilibrium. The limit of the
workspace envelop for a standing
user can be seen as the space in
which object can be reached and
gripped comfortably, when standing
up straight.
Design of work surfaces
 Within the envelop of a workplace, specific
design decisions need to be made about
various features of the workplace, the
location and design of work surfaces
Example of the work surfaces
 Horizontal work surface area
 Work surface height: seated
 Work surface height: standing
 Horizontal work surface area

 Horizontal work surface area to be used by seated and sit stand

should be provide for manual activities to be within convenient
arm’s reach.
 Work surface height: seated

 The height of the

upper surface of a
table, bench, desk,
and counter
measured from the
floor.
 Work surface height: standing

 The surface height is related to the nature of task. Heights

for precision work, light work and heavy work as related to
elbow height.
 Maximum vertical and horizontal
reach
 Vertical
reach is limited by how far
can an individual reach and grasp
objects above or below the shoulder
height without stretching or bending.
 Visual ergonomics

is the multidisciplinary science concerned with

understanding human visual processes and the
interactions between humans and other elements of
a system.

38
Some of the guidelines for monitor placement
and lighting

 Eye-t0-screen distance
 Vertical monitor location
 Monitor tilt
 Lighting

 Screen colors
 Eye-t0-screen distance

 Locate the monitor at least

25 inches from the eyes,
preferable more. One of
the main reasons for
computer related eyestrain
is the closeness of the
monitor
 Vertical monitor location

 Locatethe entire
viewing area od the
monitor between 15
and 50 degree
below horizontal
eye level
 Monitor tilt

 Monitor must be tilted back so that

the top is slightly farther away from
the eyes than bottom.
 Tilting monitor down, as is
sometimes done to avoid glare, is
opposite of the demonstrated
capabilities of the visual
performance.
Lighting

 Ceilingsuspended ,
indirect lighting. Control
outside light with blinds
and shades. Keep
ambient light levels low
and supplement with
task lighting.
 Screen colors

 Screen colors-dark
letters on a light
background. Negative
screen contrast can
reduce reflected
images.
 Ergonomics standards
in the workplace promote worker productivity, safety
and health. The standards outline practices for
improving accessibility, and visibility. They provide
standardized procedures and practices for
measuring and reducing physical stress and mental
fatigue from motion, vibration, shock, sounds.

45
 OSHA standards
OSHA standards are rules that describe the methods that
employers must use to protect their employees from
hazards. There are four groups of OSHA standards:
General Industry, Construction, Maritime, and Agriculture.

ergonomics standards in the workplace promote worker

productivity, safety and health. The standards outline
practices for improving accessibility, and visibility. They
provide standardized procedures and practices for
measuring and reducing physical stress and mental fatigue
from motion, vibration, shock, sounds.
46
OSHA’s current plan for reducing ergonomic hazards in
the workplace has four elements
 Voluntary guidelines for specific features
 Enforcement of the guidelines under the general
duty clause of the OSH act
 Compliance assistance to help employees reduce
ergonomic hazards
 Research into ergonomic issues to help identify gaps
in the body of knowledge surrounding this topic
Enforcement by OSHA
 Although the ergonomics guidelines
developed by OSHA are voluntary at
least for the foreseeable future, the
agency does claim it will use the
general duty clause of the OSH act
to enforce the guidelines in certain
situations.
Proposed requirements of the voluntary
guidelines

 Organizationsthat fall into the

general industry classifications of
manufacturing and manual material
handling are asked by the guidelines
to implement a “basic ergonomic
program”
 Ergonomics Program

A systematic process for identifying, analyzing, and controlling

workplace risk factors, often for reducing musculoskeletal disorders
Together, employers, workers, and other parties with an
understanding of ergonomics can design effective programs to
prevent and minimize WMSDs

Ergonomics programs enable employers to detect WMSD problems

and develop solutions. This approach prevents further losses in
productivity, quality, and profit by lowering rates of absenteeism,
lost time injury, and worker compensation premiums
50
Ergonomic program
elements
 Management leadership and
employee participation
 Hazard identification and information
 Job hazard analysis and control
 Training
 MSD management
 Ergonomic program evaluation
 Hazard cognition and Analysis
A hazard is defined as a "Condition, event, or circumstance that
could lead to or contribute to an unplanned or undesirable
event." Seldom does a single hazard cause an accident or a
functional failure. More often an accident or operational failure
occurs as the result of a sequence of causes

A hazard analysis is used as the first step in a process used to

assess risk. The result of a hazard analysis is the identification of
different type of hazards. A hazard is a potential condition and
exists or not (probability is 1 or 0). It may in single existence or in
combination with other hazards
52
 Cognitive failures
 Failures in the triggering and activation of
goals
 Failures in the goal themselves
 Faulty plans
 Failures to execute actions adequately
 Perceptual failure
 Failures of interpretation and evaluation of
perceptions
 Error Identification
Process
 Thisis a preliminary step in a
process of identifying possible
cognitive failures, and tracing their
effects through behavioral failures to
an impact on the task or system
being controlled.
Human Error Assessment and
Reduction Technique (HEART)
 HEART is a technique used in the
field of Human Reliability
Assessment (HRA) for the purposes
of evaluating the probability of a
human error occurring throughout
the competition of a specific task.
 Human Error Analysis

 Human error analysis provides a

systematic method of considering
the possible errors and other human
failures that may occur when
performing a task.

57
 There are many ways to categorize
human error

 Exogenous versus endogenous

 Situation assessment vs response planning and
related distinctions
 Errors in problem detection
 Errors in problem diagnosis
 Errors in planning and execution
Basic steps of the HEA methodology

 Define and interpret the issue under construction

 Detail the required scope of analysis
 Describe the base case scenario
 Define human failure events (HFE) and/or unsafe actions
(UAs)
 Following the identification of HFE
 Preparation for applying HEA
 Hazard and Operability
(HAZOP) Studies
 An important element of any system for the prevention of major
accidents is conducting a HAZOP at the detail design stage of
the plant in general and the operating and safety control
systems in particular.

 The HAZOP process is used to identify potential hazards and

operational problems in terms of plant design and human errors.
Usage

 Design

 Physical and operational

environments
What are the three types of human error

There are three types of human error:

1. slips
2. lapses (skill-based errors)
3. mistakes.
These types of human error can happen to even the most
experienced and well-trained person.

64
 What are the causes of human error?

Factors present in our working environment can cause

human error. These “stressors” can range from poor
lighting, complex documentation, inconsistent processes,
illogical material flows through to company culture,
inadequate communication and inaccurate and insensitive
performance measures.

65
 Fault tree analysis (FTA)

FTA is a top-down, deductive failure analysis in which an

undesired state of a system is analyzed using Boolean
logic to combine a series of lower-level events. This
analysis method is mainly used in safety engineering and
reliability engineering to understand how systems can fail,
to identify the best ways to reduce risk and to determine
(or get a feeling for) event rates of a safety accident or a
particular system level (functional) failure.

66
 History of Fault tree analysis (FTA)

Fault tree analysis (FTA) was originally developed in

1962 at Bell Laboratories by H.A. Watson, under a
U.S. Air Force Ballistics Systems Division contract to
evaluate the Minuteman I Intercontinental Ballistic
Missile (ICBM) Launch Control System.
The use of fault trees has since gained widespread
support and is often used as a failure analysis tool
by reliability experts
67
Fault tree analysis can be used to:

understand the logic leading to the top event / undesired

state.
show compliance with the (input) system safety / reliability
requirements.
prioritize the contributors leading to the top event- creating
the critical equipment/parts/events lists for different
importance measures

68
*monitor and control the safety performance of the complex
system
*minimize and optimize resources.
*assist in designing a system.
*The FTA can be used as a design tool that helps to create
(output / lower level) requirements.
*function as a diagnostic tool to identify and correct causes of
the top event. It can help with the creation of diagnostic
manuals / processes.

69
 FTA involves the
following steps
 Define the top event
 Know the system
 Construct the fault tree
 Validate the tree
 Evaluate the fault tree
 Study trade-offs
 Consider alternatives and recommend
action
On the basis of analysis, a block diagram is
constructed which depicts:

 The possible ways of failure

 The events which can logically be
responsible for such failures
 The sequence of events leading to
each failure
 Relation between failures of different
components
Hazard control
 Job hazard analysis
A job hazard analysis (JHA) is a
technique that focuses on job tasks
as way to identify before they occur.
It focuses on the relationship
between the worker, the task, the
tools and the work environment.
The four basic steps in
conducting JHA :
 Selecting the job to be analyzed
 Breaking the job down into sequence of steps
 Identify potential hazard
 Determining preventive measures to
overcome these hazards
 Selecting the job to be analyzed

 Ideally all jobs should be subjected to a JHA. In

some cases there are practical constraints by the
amount of time and effort required to do a JHA.
 Factors to be considered
1. Accident frequency and severity
2. Potential for severe injuries or illness
3. Newly established jobs
4. Modified job
Breaking the job down into
sequence of steps

 After a job has been chosen for

analysis, the next step is to break
the job into steps.
A job step is defined as a segment of
the operation necessary to advance
 Identify potential hazard

 Once the basic steps have been

recorded, potential hazards must be
identified at each step based on
observation of the job’s knowledge
of accident an injury causes and
personal experience, list the things
that could go wrong at each step.
Determining preventive measures to
overcome these hazards

 Eliminate the hazard

 Contain the hazard

 Reduce the exposure

 Emergency Response

Emergency response is a systematic

response to an unexpected or dangerous
occurrence. The goal of an emergency
response procedure is to mitigate the
impact of the event on people and the
environment.
80
 emergency response plan in workplace

Emergency preparedness is a well-known concept in

protecting workers' safety and health. Putting together
comprehensive emergency action plan involves
conducting a hazard assessment to determine what, if
any, physical or chemical hazards inside or from
outside the workplaces could cause an emergency.
81
 Objectives of emergency
response plan
 To improve state of preparedness to meet any
contingency
 To reduce response time in organizing the
assistance
 To identify major resources, manpower and
equipment needed to make the plan
operational
 Making optimum use of the combined
resources
 To identify mitigating measures and take
timely action
 To avoid panic situations and rumors at the
time of contingency
 To protect personal inside and outside the
project/plant
 To bring the situation under control and
thereafter the normally in minimum time
Need for emergency response
planning
 Time and again history has shown that a
well thought out, coordinate response helps
prevent personal injury, property damage,
and lessen the resulting confusion.
 When organization plans on how it will
respond to an emergency threatening its
operation, it is more likely to survive the
incident.
Emergency planning
process
 Building the site emergency team
 Conducting a hazard analysis
 Performing a capability assessment
 Creating a vital record preservation
program
Building the emergency
team
 Team composition
 Director
 Site emergency coordinator
 Unit emergency coordinator
 Emergency warning/communications
coordinator
 Emergency assessment coordinator
 Emergency maintenance coordinator
Conducting hazard
analysis
 The purpose of a hazard analysis is
to determine the hazards a site is
most susceptible and vulnerable to
experiencing by determining those
hazards prior to development the
site emergency will be realistic.
Performing a capability assessment

 By assessing an organization’s ability

to respond to an emergency situation,
the planning team can determine
what resources are already available
and what resources may be needed.
 Employee skills
 Local response capability
 vital record preservation program

 Every organization possess records

containing information, which is
valuable to the organization.
 The type of information differs
depending upon the function of the
organization and its size and
complexity.
 Declaration of
Emergency
 An incident is reported. It may be an
emergency or it may not be. A
decision is to be taken whether
emergency is to be declare or not.
 This is done by a responsible officer
who is authorized to do so.
Alerting employees in case of
emergency
 Make sure alarms are distinctive and recognized
by all employees as a signal to evacuate the
work area or perform actions identified in your
plan.
 Make available an emergency communications
system such as public address system, portable
Controlling the incident
 Approaching the source/location
 Investigating and assessing the extent of
problem and accordingly advising the main
controller regarding any further action to
be taken
 Controlling the incident
 Rescuing any victims at the actual site of
incident
On site emergency
planning
 Assessment of size and nature of events and the
probability of occurrence
 Assessment of resources available at site and with
outside agencies
 Procedures for raising alarm and communication
within and outside works
 Appointment of key personnel and defining their
duties
 Provision of emergency control centers
 Actions required on-site and off-site
 Off-site emergency
planning
 A clear organization structure giving details of a command structure,

warning procedures and emergency control centers.

 An efficient communication system to alert the key personnel.
 Details of availability of people and organizations with specialized

knowledge
 Details of organization
 Plans for evacuation, safe routes, medical treatment and rehabilitation.
 System to inform public and media.