K-Line Trailers: An Ergonomics Success Story

Risk identification and understanding the concerns of workers

K-Line Trailers’ plan began with the SRT considering which tasks or parts of final assembly workers’ jobs made them sore. This led to identifying several tasks which posed the highest risk of strain injuries in the department.

The SRT then began discussing which of the ergonomic risk factors applied. For example, drilling holes in steel was identified as a high-risk task, and the SRT identified the following as the primary ergonomics factors contributing to the strains associated with this task:

• Force: Drilling holes with hand tools requires pressure, mostly by the arms.
• Repetition: Running trailer plumbing often required many holes to be drilled.
• Duration: Some holes take several minutes of constant pressure.
• Work posture: Some holes are in tough-to-reach locations and require awkward body or wrist positioning.
• Contact pressure: The SRT did not consider this to be a risk factor in this instance.

The SRT also considered secondary factors, such as layout and workstation heights and reaches, objects handled, the environment, and work organization.

Read more

• Background
• Risk identification and understanding the concerns of workers
• Controlling the risks
• Continuous improvement
• Events and webinars

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For resources, please visit worksafebc.com/ergonomics. If you have questions about ergonomics or human factors, or need help managing the risk of MSI in your workplace, please contact us at HumanFactors@worksafebc.com