Engineering Ergonomics

and Work Study

Work Organization
 Stress and Cumulative Trauma
 Scientific Research provide support for adding stress to
the list of factors for CTDs
 Investigation needed to identify the precise relationship
 Studies conducted that link CTDs with psychological
stress and work organization issues
 The effect of stress is to amplify the severity of the
physical risk factors
 When the human body is under stress, certain muscles
may be constantly tensed, which in turn intensifies other
risk factors such as forceful or repetitive motions
Stress and Cumulative Trauma
 Stressful situations can increase the risk of CTD by about two
to three times
 Preventing CTDs involves more than just physical issues like
tools and workstation layouts
 Work organization issues must be addressed as well
 Sometimes tasks are equivalent in terms of physical activities,
but have differences in CTD experience
 These variations can be explained in several ways, differences
in:
 individuals
 Levels of awareness among groups of people
 Willingness to report problems
 However, sometimes these puzzles are better explained by
the presence of an additional factor - Work Organization
Work Organization and Preventing
Cumulative Trauma
There are three ways work organization factors can
incrrase the risks for CTDs:
 Increased physical risk factors
 Overtime
 Wage incentives
 Employee Behavior change
 Shortcuts
 Machine pacing
 Mental Stress – level of psychological stress
Common Problems
 Excessive Overtime
 Increase the daily dose of repetitive motions
 Reduce the time for body tissue to recover
 Trigger the physiological stress response
 Electronic monitoring
 Listening to Telephone conversations with customers
 Tracking Keystrokes for clerical employees
 Wage Incentive systems
 Traditional price rate system
 Focus efforts and skill on broader range of activities
 In quality oriented management systems – improvement of
the production process
Common Recommendations
 Job enlargement
 Enlarge jobs rather than making them increasingly narrow
 Switch from assembly line to work Cell
 Job Rotation
 Many advantages
 Cross-training
 Job stimulus
 Better understanding of the organization’s operations
 Risk factor is averaged
 Break-in periods
 No time given- tendinitis
 Length and nature should depend on type of tasks
 Work/Rest Schedule
 Number of breaks and length of each
 Focus efforts and skill on broader range of activities
 In quality oriented management systems – improvement of the production process
Common Recommendations
 Exercise
 Work Load Reduction
 Team Building
 Training
Thanks