Shop (Floor) Talk

Available are scores of manuals, programs, instructional aids, videos, signs and other aids to keep workers in tune with most current regulations aimed at keeping them safe. Good practices lead to good results. Not being in compliance during the course of an inspection by OSHA can result in everything from recognition of a minor violation that may be immediately resolved to a willful violation that can entail serious monetary penalties.

In looking at the safety issues associated with manual material handling, Sandy Smith, editor of EHS Today, characterizes the risks in three broad categories. EHS Today, the magazine for environment, health and safety (formerly known as Occupational Hazards), is an authoritative source of trends, management strategies, regulatory news and new products aimed at providing safe and healthy work sites.

One group of risks, according to Smith, involves manual material handling: carrying boxes, lifting crates, pushing, pulling and so forth. Activities of that sort are related to stress and strain injuries and sometimes traumatic injuries. “For a brief time,” she explains, “OSHA had an ergonomics standard that addressed some of those issues. But that was overturned with the Bush administration, and there has not been anything new added to the books. However, there has been some talk that OSHA might once again examine ergonomics.”

The OSHA standard referred to the amount of weight a person could lift and types of repetitive exposures. If a worker was lifting a box 100 times a day, for example, it examined those types of issues. “I think smart businesses follow the old OSHA rules. Those kinds of muscular and skeletal injuries can be incredibly expensive,” notes Smith. There are about 350,000 over-exertion injuries each year, with some two-thirds or more of those associated with lifting.

Smith recalls that Liberty Mutual Insurance conducts a great deal of research on lifting and slip-and-fall injuries — which also is a concern in many facilities — and estimates the cost of over-exertion injuries to businesses is about $13 to $14 billion a year. Costs include medical care, workers' compensation payments, insurance and re-training of an injured or new worker.

In looking at reasons some companies may hold back from taking measures to reduce risks to workers, Smith says they may think solutions will be expensive. “In many cases,” she claims, “actions may not even have a cost associated with them. It might be the difference between having employees lift boxes weighing 40 pounds versus those weighing 70 pounds. That sort of move may save some $100,000 in injury costs.”

Smith sees another risk involving industrial trucks. “Many times,” she says, “if a lift truck overturns or goes off of a loading dock — that happens a lot more than you may imagine — the operator may be seriously injured or killed.”

Many manufacturers are working to improve lift truck safety, and Smith says Toyota Material Handling USA is doing an excellent job. For example, the manufacturer's 8-Series lift truck offers a system of active stability (SAS), which uses sensors to note various factors that lead to lateral instability and potential overturn, she notes. When those conditions are detected, SAS instantly engages the truck's swing lock cylinder to stabilize the rear axle, substantially reducing the likelihood of an overturn.

Ergonomics are of concern to Toyota, as well. The 8-Series incorporates such operator comfort attributes as hydrostatic power steering, low wide entry step, a non-cinching seat belt and a four-way, adjustable, vinyl, full-suspension seat.