As Timken strives to decrease repetitive-motion injuries companywide, ergonomics is “rapidly” becoming part of the culture at Faircrest and Gambrinus Steel Plants in Canton, Ohio.

 

Using the RAPID (Risk And Performance Improvement Deployment) team approach – similar to lean manufacturing’s kaizan process – Faircrest and Gambrinus associates identified 244 potential ergonomic “fixes.” During the four-day events held in 2006 and early 2007, the teams implemented 83 simple, highly visible improvements and placed the remaining 161 on a list to be addressed within 90 days.

 

Roberta Corn, a mold handler at Faircrest and a Timken associate for more than 33 years, has been part of the plant’s safety team since 2002 and was a participant in the RAPID event.

 

“The team got a great deal accomplished in just a few days,” she said. “Once you understand ergonomics, you can see where certain tasks wear and tear on co-workers.”

 

RAPID focused on an easy, rules-based approach: find it, fix it and check it for success. Following their training, team members walked through the plants, looking for awkward elbow, shoulder and back postures.

 

“In most cases, these changes were just common sense,” said Rodney Smith, senior associate reliability and safety analyst – Faircrest. “Many enhancements involved workstation adjustments so associates did not have to frequently reach up, bend down or do unnecessary lifting on the job.”

 

Brian Vernier, a tender special controller at Gambrinus, was selected for the RAPID event and found the method educational.

 

“When you walk around the mill with ‘ergonomic eyes,’ you look at things in a whole new way,” he said. “RAPID increased productivity and improved associate safety at the same time. I hope we’ll do it again.”

 

Robin Austin, principal associate reliability and safety analyst – Gambrinus, added: “This is a living process. Now that we’ve trained a core group, we are encouraging the associates to bring new concerns to our attention so we can continuously improve ergonomics.”