1. A Five Step Process for Finding WMSD* Hazards in Your Workplace
*Work-Related Musculo-Skeletal Disorders

2. This slide show provides…
…a method and a set of tools to help you find WMSD hazards in your workplace.

3. This slide show will help you…
Apply a simple process to identify WMSD hazards your workplace
Locate resources and contacts for more assistance
Objectives – pretty straightforward.

4. WMSDs WMSDs are workplace injuries to the soft tissues such as:
muscles
tendons
ligaments
joints
blood vessels
nerves
Work-related musculoskeletal disorders, or WMSDs, are injuries that occur to the soft tissues of the body – the muscles, tendons (attach muscle to bone), ligaments (attach bone to bone), joints, blood vessels and nerves.
These injuries can include rotator cuff injuries and bursitis in the shoulder, epicondylitis (a form of tendinitis) in the elbow, carpal tunnel syndrome in the wrist, low back pain and bursitis of the knee.
WMSDs tend to occur gradually, accumulating from months or even years of work, as opposed to sudden injuries such as a broken bone due to a fall or a neck injury from a motor vehicle accident.

5. Causes of WMSDs
Some jobs include tasks which can cause injuries, such as:
Lifting
Awkward postures
Forceful gripping or pinching
Repetitive motions
Intensive keying
Hand-arm vibration
These are some of the terms from workers’ comp claim summaries that they may be familiar with. Bodily reaction injuries are associated with a reaction to some event, such as reaching to grab a heavy box that is falling off a table. We use the term WMSDs to cover all of them.
A link to information on recommended safe exposure levels for these hazards is in the appendix at the end of this presentation

6. Five-step process for preventing WMSDs
Identify jobs that may have hazards
Educate and involve employees
Evaluate jobs for hazards
Identify and implement solutions
Re-evaluate to make sure solutions are effective
These are the 5 basic steps to solving any ergonomics problem.
The first step is to select those tasks that might be at risk for injury. There’s some cause for concern, but we’re not sure if they’re hazardous or not.
The second step is to give employees in those jobs (and their supervisors, too) some basic education on ergonomics principles so that they can help out with the next few steps. Employees are a great source of information and the real experts at their jobs, so it’s important to take advantage of their knowledge. They’re also more likely to accept any changes if they’re involved in the planning.
The third step is to work with employees to see if the tasks are really bad enough to create an unacceptable risk for injury, in other words, they are hazardous. At this point, it’s important to figure out exactly what’s causing the hazard, which will make step 4 easier. In this workshop, you’ll get some practice identifying hazards and their underlying causes.
The fourth step is to implement solutions to reduce the hazards and the likelihood of injury. We’ll spend a lot of our time talking about solutions and showing you examples.
The fifth and final step, and a very important one, is to take another look at the jobs after the solutions are in place to make sure they’re effective in reducing the risk of injury. Sometimes you might need to tweak a solution a little to get it to work just right. There’s also the possibility that a solution to one problem might create other problems when it’s put into place. Sometimes these little problems are enough to keep employees from using the solutions. Most of the time there are simple fixes to these problems, but you need to be aware of them to know to fix them.
A concern

7. Step 1: Identify jobs that may have hazards
 Jobs with:
Injuries
Employee/supervisor concerns
Bottlenecks
Quality problems
Unnecessary steps
In the pictured job, the paint cans originally had to be moved more than once in order to store them. This is an example of a job with unnecessary steps. The unnecessary steps also are a risk for lifting injuries. It’s pretty common to see this in jobs that haven’t been planned out. By enlarging the door it became possible to move the pallets of paint into the shed with a forklift, eliminating handling them more than once.

8. Step 2: Educate and involve employees
Use safety committees or ergonomics committees
Provide employees with basic awareness of ergonomics principles. *
Have employees participate in finding and implementing solutions to hazards in their jobs. They have the most knowledge about their jobs. They may already know how to improve them.
If employees are involved in improving jobs, they are more likely to buy into the new process or machinery. Empowering line workers in the determination of hazards and seeking their input in determining solutions and implementing them has also been shown to have a positive effect on the work environment as well. Pride of ownership.
* A link to a basic ergonomics awareness slide show is in the appendix at the end of this presentation.

9. Step 3: Evaluate jobs for hazards
Tools:
Checklists
Calculators for lifting tasks
Employee interviews
Also helpful:
Photos or videotape
Symptom surveys
Safety committee meeting minutes
OSHA 300 or incident logs
Claims history
These are some of the tools that you can use in your workplace to evaluate hazards. You don’t have to use all of them every time. Some hazards are pretty obvious. But, if you do a good job of reviewing this information, you may find some potential sources of injury that you might otherwise not find out about until an injury actually occurs. This information can also help you to prioritize your efforts, taking care of the worst hazards first.

10. Step 3: Evaluate jobs for hazards - Checklists
Checklists are quick ways to evaluate jobs to see if further review is needed
Have them take the checklist out of their packet.
Go over the risk factors with them, not to explain, but to introduce.
A link to easy-to-use checklists is in the appendix at the end of this presentation

11. Step 3: Evaluate jobs for hazards – Lifting Calculator
What you need to know:
Weight of item
Lifting location (hand zone)
Frequency of lifts
Duration of lifting
Does the person twist?
This is a simple tool for you to determine whether you have lifting hazards at your workplace. The limits are derived from extensive research and are the ones used in the former ergonomics rule. This is just a guideline. Have them take out the lifting calculator and go through an example with them using the following slide. Tell them they will be using the calculator to assess a lift in Part 2 of the class.
There may be questions about using this calculator now that the ergonomics rule has gone away. We offer this calculator as a tool for you to assess your own risk based on the guidelines you set in your individual business. We also refer attendees to two other calculators they can use to determine lifting hazards.
Links to this calculator and two others are in the appendix at the end of this presentation

12. Step 3: Evaluate jobs for hazards - Interviews
Ask employees:
How long does this job take?
Why do you do this job this way?
Do you get tired or feel any discomfort?
Any ideas of ways to do it better?
These are some of the questions that they may want to ask when talking to employees and supervisors about potential problems, as well as ideas for solutions.
Tell them that they will be using a set of answers to interview questions in Part 2 of the class.
Bottlenecks and quality problems may indicate some problem which overloads one or more persons in the manufacturing process
Ask supervisors:
Are there jobs that people do not like to do?
Any complaints or symptoms of injury?
Any bottlenecks or quality problems?

13. Step 3: Evaluate jobs for hazards – Photos or videos
Photos are good for looking at static jobs, where the worker holds a position for a long period of time. Video is better for dynamic jobs, so that you can count repetitions and see the variety of postures the worker must assume.
This an opportunity to practice interview questions, using the checklist and the lifting calculator
Have them get the tools out of their packets and use the checklist to ask you questions about both jobs:
Electrician installing light fixtures and warehouse worker palletizing totes
What issues do you see, and what questions would you ask (using the checklist)?
Videos to evaluate movements
Photos to show static postures
A link to OSHA’s videotaping guidelines is in the Appendix at the end of this presentation.

14. Step 3: Evaluate jobs for hazards – symptom surveys
Symptom surveys are good ways to find problems before injuries occur
Symptom Surveys are true prevention tools. They are pro-active. They can help you find problems before they result in injuries, and give you good information about how well your solutions are working.
Ask the class to take out their Symptom Surveys and go over how they are used. Tell them that they will be using them in Part 2 of the class.
A link to a symptom survey form is in the Appendix at the end of this presentation.

15. Step 4: Identify and implement solutions
Solution Tools:
Ergonomics Ideas Bank
Industry Association
Vendors
Catalogs
Create them in-house
The Ergonomics Ideas Bank is a comprehensive search tool containing hundreds (800+) ideas covering every major industry sector.
We will use the Ideas Bank in Part 2 of the class to hunt for solutions to the issues you have determined in your investigation.
A link to a slide show showing simple solutions to common WMSD hazards is in the appendix at the end of this slide show
A link to this web page is in the appendix at the end of this presentation

16. Step 5: Re-evaluate to see if solutions are effective
Use checklists and other tools to make sure you eliminated or reduced the hazards.
Make sure you did not create new hazards.
Ask workers if they feel better or notice positive differences.
Review your ergonomics activities once a year.
It’s very important to follow-up on the solutions you’ve implemented to make sure they actually get rid of the hazard without creating new hazards. It may make sense to follow-up immediately after putting something in place, then a few months later once employees have had some time to get used to it. You can use the same tools to evaluate the job after the changes that you used to find the hazard in the first place. This will allow you to do a direct before-after comparison.

17. Help is available
L&I offers a number of services at no cost to employers in Washington State. Follow the links below to learn more:
On-site consultations
Workshops
More information on ergonomics

18. Appendix – Links to Helpful Tools
Ergonomics Analysis Tools
Symptoms Survey
Checklists
OSHA Videotaping Guidelines
Lifting Calculators
ACGIH ® TLV ® for Lifting
L&I Lifting Calculator
L&I Lifting Analysis paper version
NIOSH Lifting Equation calculator
NIOSH Lifting Equation user manual
Common WMSD Hazards in Your Workplace and Some Solution Ideas
Ergonomics Awareness slide show
Recommended exposure limits for preventing WMSDs slide show
The links here take you to the information you need to use the two calculators listed here. Showing you how to use these tools is beyond the scope of this class.
L&I Ergonomics Ideas Bank