Tag: human factors

OM in the News: The Long and the Short of the Perfect Office Chair

ergonomicsErgonomics (see Chapter 10) is an important issue for operations managers, be it in a factory setting or in an office. A rising problem, reports The Wall Street Journal (May 20, 2014) is the office chair. Most chairs are designed for the 5th to the 95th percentile of the population—people who are closer to average in size. That leaves roughly 4 million white-collar workers on the unlucky extremes of the bell curve—too small for their chair, with legs dangling, or too big for their chair, with knees bent up toward the chin.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who is 4 foot 10 inches, once sawed off the legs of his office chair and desk to make them fit. He was working in the Justice Department in the 1970s, and the General Services Administration refused his request to shorten his standard-sized wooden desk and chair. “I snuck in one weekend with my saw and did it myself, and sent the stubs to the GSA administrator,” Dr. Reich says. His office chair later as Labor Secretary left his legs sticking out, so he held meetings standing up.

Solving the problem can be complicated for employers. Some worry about fostering resentment if they give one employee a special chair. Also, changing the size of a chair often means the desk must be raised or lowered too. Manufacturers are offering more work tables that can be adjusted with an electric lift, a hand crank or movable pins in the legs. They are also making more work surfaces, keyboard supports and computer-monitor arms that can be moved on vertical rails.

Most operations managers are under heavy pressure to hold down costs, however, and providing special items for a few workers conflicts with a common strategy of buying many standard items at discounted prices. Special chairs can list for $1,000 or more. But the need for adjustable chairs is growing. Steelcase Inc. recently studied the body shapes and postures of 2,000 workers in 11 countries and found that “extreme size” is on the rise.

Classroom discussion questions:

1. Why is ergonomics an important OM issue in offices?

2. Are height issues a similar problem in factories?

OM in the News: And the Winner of This Year’s Ergonomics Prize Is…

CocaColaSmallCoca-Cola found a way to improve the posture of workers responsible for off-loading fruit from shipment containers to a collection bin. It didn’t involve a high-tech, expensive fix. Associates simply designed and built a tool using spare pipe from their maintenance department. During the old process (left), a worker had to prop a door open using a shovel in one hand to control the flow of the fruit, while the other hand had to unlatch the door and sweep the fruit out of the container and into the bin. The tool allows for the fruit to be released without the hand support of the worker.

For this innovative, less physically taxing approach to a daily problem, the company took first place (out of 180 entries) in Humantech’s Find It – Fix It Challenge. The contest, described in Material Handling & Logistics (Nov., 2013), recognizes simple and effective workplace solutions that increase productivity, improve worker morale and reduce workplace injuries and illnesses. Honorable mentions went to Goodyear Tire and to Hitchiner Manufacturing.

Prior to the improvement at Goodyear, an operator had to change and move liner rolls while in awkward postures. With shrugged shoulders, poor grip and radial deviation postures in the hands and wrists, the operator had to carry the liner roll to the rack, and then lift and set it into its desired location. After adding an ergonomically automated lifting and lowering device to support the liner rolls, the operator’s new task is to push the device to the desired location, which eliminates the awkward postures.

Initially, at Hitchiner, an operator had to pick up a 50-pound bag of wax beads from a pallet and carry it to a workstation. At least once per shift, the operator had to pick up the bag and dump beads into a barrel to refill it. Now, the operator  just pushes the near empty barrel to the filler to be refilled. This improvement eliminated all heavy lifting and awkward postures.

Classroom discussion questions:
1. Provide other examples of how ergonomics can improve a process with which you are familiar.

2. Who is in the best place to provide process improvements?