Date of Award
Spring 5-1-2019
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Occupational Safety Management
Department
Applied Engineering and Technology Management
Abstract
The company experienced a high volume of recordable injuries and decided it was time to implement an ergonomic program in order to drive down the number of ergonomic related injuries. The ergonomics program was implemented in mid-2016 and positively impacted the company’s incident rate. Due to the high ergonomic related incident rate the company had in 2016, the decision was made to implement an ergonomic improvement program in 2017. The goal is to determine the effectiveness of the ergonomics improvement program. This project consists of the study of data before and after the implementation as well as a review of related literature. This study began with assessing risk of each job task in the facility after realizing the need for an improvement. After each task was assessed and assigned a risk priority number, the project was added to a common spreadsheet. The project leaders chose projects to complete from the common spreadsheet and produced a PDCA for each completed project. The PDCA entailed a section for planning, doing, and checking for sustainability of the project. Upon completion of the project, a walk to present the improvements was conducted for recognition. No statistically significant reduction of injuries was found, although there was a 17% reduction of injuries. However, a significant reduction in severity of each injury was noted throughout the study.
Recommended Citation
Cherry, Miriah L., "Analysis of the Effect of an Ergonomic Improvement Program on Incident Rates in a Forklift Manufacturing/assembly Plant" (2019). All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 39.
https://scholars.indianastate.edu/etds/39
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