Task 1

 This assignment involves reading two separate scenarios and then completing an ergonomics observation report (EOR) for each scenario. Click here to access the scenarios along with the corresponding EORs. The purpose of this assignment is for you to begin using the process of observing workers and their work environments, while specifically relating the human body to ergonomics. Although this assignment does not require preparing a formal piece of writing, you are expected to use your own words to answer the questions. Complete the EORs.

Scenarios

Instructions:  Read both Scenario #1 and also Scenario #2, and then complete the ergonomics observation reports by clearly answering the questions that have been listed within each report. 

Scenario #1: Beth’s Office Setting. Beth works in an office setting for five days per week. In her cubicle, she typically uses her computer to perform her responsibilities. While Beth only stands five feet and two inches tall, the equipment at her cubicle is more suitable for a taller employee. One advantage is that she is able to adjust the height on her rolling desk chair. After performing her responsibilities at her cubicle for several years, Beth has been recently suffering from back and neck pain. As a result, Beth communicated her pain to her company and has requested an evaluation by a doctor.

Ergonomics Observation Report 

The Worker  What is the worker’s name?    Male or female?    Height?    The Work Setting  Describe the work setting.    Anatomy and Physiology  What types of human systems are involved in the worker’s daily activity? Be specific.    Has the worker mentioned any pain? If yes, explain.    What are the potential cumulative trauma disorders (CTDs) or musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs)?   Fit   How would you describe the fit of the work activity and setting? Be sure to mention how the human body fits.    Enjoyment   How would you describe the enjoyment of the work activity and setting? Be sure to mention how the human body impacts enjoyment.    Personnel’s Input for Design  To involve personnel in the design, what types of questions would you ask the worker to improve the ergonomics of the work environment? (include at least five questions)  

  

Scenario #2: Ben the Truck Driver. In this scenario, Ben is a truck driver who has been driving for at least 15 years and is now complaining of right shoulder and neck pain. Ben is 45 years old, 6 feet tall, and weighs 220 pounds. Ben has been driving a semi-truck, which has a handle for climbing into the truck and it is mounted on the side of the cab. The trailers Ben usually hauls are box trailers, and Ben has to climb into and out of the trailer multiple times per day using the handle on the rear of the trailer. 

Ergonomics Observation Report 

The Worker  What is the worker’s name?    Male or female?    Height?    Weight?    Age?    The Work Setting  Describe the work setting.    Anatomy and Physiology  What types of human systems are involved in the worker’s daily activity? Be specific.    Has the worker mentioned any pain? If yes, explain.    What are the potential cumulative trauma disorders (CTDs) or musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs)?   Fit   How would you describe the fit of the work activity and setting? Be sure to mention how the human body fits.   Enjoyment   How would you describe the enjoyment of the work activity and setting? Be sure to mention how the human body impacts enjoyment.   Personnel’s Input for Design  To involve personnel in the design, what types of questions would you ask the worker to improve the ergonomics of the work environment? (include at least five questions)    

Task2

 This assignment involves reading two scenarios and then answering each question that follows the scenarios. Insert your responses just below each question, save all of your work, and then submit it in Blackboard for grading. Click here to access the template for this assignment. 

Scenarios

This assignment involves reading two scenarios and then answering each question that follows the scenarios. Insert your responses just below each question, save all of your work, and then submit it in Blackboard for grading. 

Scenario #1

Scenario one allows you to focus on thinking about the area near the immediate work space. Expanding upon the truck driver’s scenario from Unit I, Ben is delivering pipe to an oil field in North Dakota. The pipe comes from a yard in Texas where the driver picked up the load. During the trip up to the delivery site, Ben notices a large red mark on his upper arm. As the trip progresses, the red mark appears to look infected and ulcerated. Ben delivers the load and then seeks medical attention. The diagnosis is a bite from a Brown Recluse Spider, which requires overnight hospitalization, surgical debridement, and then additional treatments of intravenous antibiotics.  

Question 1. As you visualize the employee’s environment, how might this driver have been bitten by the spider? Explain the normal habitat for the Brown Recluse Spider and what might be done to prevent such a bite from occurring again. Your response should be at least 150 words. 

Question 2. The truck trailer is a flatbed type of trailer and the pipe is loaded on the trailer and then secured. The pipe is loaded from a pile on the ground. As the pipe is loaded, the driver has to secure the load. The pipe is loaded in Texas in July. Describe what temperature and humidity issues the driver might have to face and mitigate while loading and securing the pipe on the trailer. Your response should be at least 150 words.

Question 3. Explain the hazards associated with working around the loading and unloading of material as it relates to line of fire, pinch point, and falls. How would each of these issues be addressed by the driver prior to beginning the evolution of loading and unloading? Your response should be at least 150 words. 

Scenario #2 

Beth, the office worker from Unit I, is working in a new office setting. The building construction has just been completed and the workers are now completing their tasks inside the new office building. As the workers are new to the building, several issues start to appear before they are communicated to the building manager. 

Question 1. Several employees begin complaining of headaches and eye strain while at work. Individually, the employees seem to take the complaints in stride, but during one particular meeting the complaints come to light. Describe several items that might cause this type of complaint in multiple workers in a new building. Your response should be at least 150 words. 

Question 2. Beth has now taken possession of her new work area. All new furniture has been installed with new tools for the desk and surrounding areas. Give examples of measurements that could be taken from the employee (anthropometry) and apply them to making adjustments to the work space area. Your response should be at least 150 words. 

Question 3. Discuss the OSHA regulation General Duty Clause 5(a)(1) as it relates to this scenario. Also, explain the OSHA General Duty Clause 5(b) as it might relate as well. Your response should be at least 150 words. 

Task3

 This assignment involves reading two scenarios and then answering each question that follows the scenarios. Insert your responses just below each question, save all of your work, and then submit it in Blackboard for grading. Click here to access the template for this assignment 

Scenario/Template

This assignment involves reading two scenarios and then answering each question that follows the scenarios. Insert your responses just below each question, save all of your work, and then submit it in Blackboard for grading. 

Scenario #1 

Our truck driver from previous scenarios puts in 500 miles per day, with no more than 11 hours driving time allowed by DOT standards, with a total of no more than 14 hours worked in a 24-hour period. Truck drivers must rest (or be off duty) for at least 10 hours for every 24-hour period. Traveling 500 miles in 11 hours means that the driver has to maintain an average of 45.5 miles per hour. Keep in mind that the driver will need to stop for various reasons, such as fuel, food, and bathroom breaks (depending on how many large quantities of coffee they drank). Also, the driver has a satellite system in the truck that monitors the miles driven, the average and specific speed, the fuel flow, and time. 

Question 1. Use the Iowa Model (page 270 of the textbook) to make recommendations for improving the performance of drivers in the scenario. 

(1) The effect of combining tasks – what are three examples that the driver could do to combine tasks to improve efficiency? 

(2) The effect of performing particular task sequences – recommend a sequence for a series of tasks for the driver to maintain accuracy and productivity. 

(3) The effect of pacing – how much time the driver spends on each task. 

Question 2. Provide examples of how, as an ergonomics safety professional, you might help the driver prevent the common CTDs of low back pain, sciatica, and thoracic outlet syndrome? Think in terms of analysis and body measurements. What type of technique would you use to capture and interpret the data, based on the techniques discussed in chapter 6? Your response should be at least 150 words. 

Question 3. Knowing that the driver gets paid by the mile and has to travel 500 miles per day in order to make his daily pay, list several things that drivers do that might be dangerous to themselves or others in order to make this production. These are items that we as safety professionals should be on the lookout for. Your response should be at least 150 words. 

Scenario #2

Look at a typical racing team. NASCAR, Indy car, or Formula one racing teams have developed specific and targeted routines for their drivers and pit crews. Years ago, these very teams had little in the way of safety devices or ergonomic tools, and the drivers and crews paid with their lives at times. In today’s racing world, the drivers and pit crews use highly detailed tools to help advance their team in the race while also keeping team members safe. The crew chief and his assistants monitor all aspects of the team to include fuel usage, tire usage, tire pressure, engine diagnostics, as well as other details. To indicate the importance of such details, racing teams have both won and also lost races due to fuel usage. 

Question 1. Using your favorite search engine, locate and watch race footage, or actually watch a race, and describe some of the safety tools the teams use to prevent injury in the pit area. Specifically, look at the fueler, the tire changer, and the tire wrangler. Also, look at items that are ergonomically beneficial to these team members. Your response should be at least 150 words.

Question 2. While viewing the race footage, spend some time watching the driver while he or she is in the car. What devices does the driver use specifically for safety? What about the ergonomic devices that allow the driver to turn left at very high speeds for several hundreds of miles without sustaining either short- or long-term injury. Discuss this in terms of body measurements and modeling. Your response should be at least 150 words. 

Question 3. The crew chief spends significant amounts of time in practice with the pit crew. They try to reduce valuable seconds from their work times with the car while in the pits. Discuss several ways, using the items you learned from this unit (analysis, measurement, modeling, sampling) that the crew chief might use to evaluate the team. As a safety professional assigned to the team and answering to the team’s owners, give one or two suggestions to improve the safety of the crew. Your response should be at least 150 words. 

Task 4

 This assignment involves completing a series of four exercises, and the purpose is for you to practice utilizing these processes toward evaluating common controls for mitigating ergonomic related hazards. Click here to access the template for this assignment. 

Template

This assignment involves completing a series of four exercises, and the purpose is for you to practice utilizing these processes toward evaluating common controls for mitigating ergonomic-related hazards. 

Exercise 1: Task Analysis 

Take the simple task of lifting a 25-pound box (18 inches x 18 inches x 18 inches) from the floor and placing it on a desk that is 36 inches high from the floor. In the space below, perform a task analysis by using one of the methods described in the textbook and listing the steps for completing the task. Then, list the potential hazards associated with each step (i.e., stressors, CTDs, MSDs). Also, provide at least three ways to improve the task from an ergonomics perspective. 

Task Analysis  Identify the method you used =   Task = Lifting a box from the floor and placing it on a desk.     In the spaces below, list the steps for the task.  List the potential hazards for each step                                      

Ergonomic Improvements  List at least three ways to improve the steps while avoiding the hazards.   1.   2.   3.   4.   5.   

Exercise 2: Flow Diagram  

Using the flow-diagram system, describe in detail the task of cart retrieval at the local grocery store or big box store. Start from the point where the customer acquires the cart inside the store and then discards the cart in the cart storage within the parking lot. This exercise requires two items from you:  (1) a paragraph that describes the flow of tasks and (2) the flow diagram that visually represents the flow of tasks by using the shapes below. Copy and paste the shapes as you need to. Also, feel free to resize the shapes as you need to. Be sure to add a label to each shape, excluding the arrow. 

Exercise 3: The Fault-Tree System 

This exercise involves using the fault-tree system to help identify the cause of an event. First, read the scenario and then identify examples within the scenario to insert into the third tier of the fault tree. Second, select ONE of the AND gates and then propose a way to prevent the hazard from occurring (through the AND gate) in the future. 

While walking in from the parking lot, Beth fell and injured her knee. She was running late because she stopped to get coffee for her supervisor. Usually, Beth carries her purse, personal-items bag, and her laptop computer bag. Today, she added a coffee-cup carrier and was talking on her cell phone while walking. Beth was also wearing her new dress shoes, a 4-inch heal with ½ inch sole. Beth felt rushed because she was arriving after the start of her regular shift. 

The surface of the parking lot is asphalt and does not drain properly. Beth regularly parks very close to the front of the employee parking lot because she is usually one of the first to arrive. Today, because she stopped to get coffee, she had to park near the back of the lot, which is 50 yards farther than her regular parking spot. There is no defined walkway and the lot is not artificially lit during the day. 

The weather conditions for this incident were an outside temperature right at 32 degrees F with a light rain. The skies were overcast even though it was past 8:00 am. The walking surface was wet with rain and slush building up, which made the walking surface very slippery. There was some black ice forming on the ground where the incident occurred.

Select ONE of the AND gates (i.e., Employee, Walking Surface, and Surrounding Environment) from Beth’s scenario and then propose a way to prevent the hazard from occurring in the future.     Exercise 4: Failure Modes and Effects Analysis 

Using the failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) method, discuss the potential outcomes when using a cell phone to contact 911 emergency services as opposed to using a landline (house) phone to contact 911. What failures might occur and what effects might those failures have on the outcome of summoning help through the 911 system? Your response should be at least 100 words.