Future of ergonomics lies in improving performance
More savings potential than workers’ comp?
When it comes to ergonomics, Franz Schneider, CPE, CIE, does not mince words. Schneider, the president of Ann Arbor, MI-based Humantech Inc., an occupational ergonomics consulting firm, says that too much attention is being paid to reducing workers’ compensation claims through ergonomics and not enough to improving overall performance.
"My bias is that the issue of workers’ comp is moot, null and void," he asserts. "There’s not enough [financial] action there to merit attention." Schneider was a presenter at The National Ergonomics Conference and Exposition held in December in Dallas.
The conference attendance, estimated at about 600, seems to confirm Schneider’s contention that ergonomics has become a more sophisticated and more accepted discipline.
"I think what you’re seeing is a continual maturity in the whole area of ergonomics. It’s taking on many different faces," says Schneider. "There is a large representation of people in engineering, interior design, and a number from occupational health. There are a lot of supervisors, as well as hourly people. In short, many types of people are now involved who weren’t involved 10 years ago."
Schneider does not reject the conventional wisdom of the wellness profession; he simply wants to look beyond it.
"Healthy people perform better than sick people, and all wellness is driven by the desire to have more healthy people," he notes. "But what about the next level?"
Keep a positive work ethic
When addressing that next level, says Schneider, you can either look at the ergonomics glass as half empty or half full. "Half full says that by improving work methods, by integrating tools and hardware, you can enable people to do more," he explains. "Half empty means that by not paying attention to work methods, you can create an environment that injures people. I prefer to talk about performance enhancing techniques."
Using this approach, Schneider has achieved tangible results for clients. "Overall, this approach can give you immediate short-term gains that also allow you to prevent long-term costs," he explains. "For instance, at an aerospace company, we took 26% off the production cycles; so, it now takes 26% less person time to manufacture a wing assembly. At a major automobile manufacturer, we reduced the person time by 43%, yielding $262,000 in direct labor savings. They paid $9,000 to make the improvements, which will run for three years on that line. What manager would not want to do this?"
Health link retained
Although the primary focus of Humantech’s approach may appear to be performance, employee health also reaps considerable benefits. For example, at a Silicon Valley Big Three client, the cumulative trauma disorders rate went from 18 incidents to two in two years.
How? "By putting in effective ergonomic furniture and lighting and addressing micro’ issues such as correct posture these have yielded out incredible benefits," says Schneider.
What employers pay for is the amount of time employees spend productively performing their job tasks, says Schneider, and his firm has been able to increase that by as much as 30%. "Leverage in the office environment is incredible," he asserts. "The $5,000 cost of one program was recovered within the first year. And the company will have depreciation on the new equipment for the next five years."
Still unclear on the benefits?
Schneider offers a hypothetical situation to further illustrate office leverage. "Say you go out and buy a really nice ergonomic chair for $800," he says. "You get to write it off over seven years, so it only cost $110 per year. The mean wages and benefits of an administrative employee are $30,000, according to the American Management Association. At 2,000 hours a year, that person costs the company $15 an hour. If he can work an extra 20 minutes a day, the company saves $5 a day. And our data says you gain closer to an hour."
Again, stresses Schneider, he is not talking about focusing on performance at the expense of employee health; the two go hand in hand. "Let’s look at the simple activity of putting in lift tables, so people don’t have to bend so far," says Schneider. "Say a worker packs 200,000 boxes per year, which takes 144 person hours. If you pay them $15 per hour, that costs more than $2,000. A lift table is $1,000, so in six months you get your money back in three months, if you have two shifts. And you save people from bending over to the floor, which will help reduce back injuries. People will feel less fatigued at the end of the day, so you’ve managed a risk factor, and your employees feel better in the short term."
This process, he notes, can be replicated across thousands of injuries. "That’s what the whole issue of managed performance is all about."
[Editor’s Note: For more information, contact: Franz Schneider, Humantech Inc., 900 Victors Way, Suite 220, Ann Arbor, MI 48108. Telephone: (313) 663-6707. Internet: http://www.htec.com]
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