Author: christopher Harper

Ignoring Ergonomics Can Lead to Injury

We discussed “The Scientific Roots and Business Applications of Ergonomics” to give you some background on this topic and help you to understand why employers need to think of ergonomics as more than a buzzword; it is a useful science that can make your workplace more productive and profitable. DJ Products designs material handling solutions that are not simply designed to get the job done or move objects from one place to another; they are designed to help your employees avoid painful injuries as they do their work.

The injuries that result from ignoring ergonomics are very real. Some can take an employee away from work immediately; others result in wear and tear over time and gradually make it more difficult for employees to complete tasks.

These kinds of injuries are caused not just by repetitive motions but also by forceful motion, which Empowher.com defines as including “actions like lifting things that are too heavy, working on bolts that are rusted on, or a squeezing motion that is too frequent for comfort or too hard for the hand.”

Here are some of the conditions you can help your employees to avoid:

Lumbar (lower back) injuries– “caused by bending, lifting, pulling, pushing and twisting improperly.”

Tennis elbow– the elbow becomes painfully inflamed after the forearm has been repeatedly rotated with too much force or too often

Rotator cuff injury – it becomes painful to move the shoulder and arthritis may result from repeated arm movements, especially repeated use of the arms over the head

Tendinitis– various joints become painfully inflamed because of bad posture and repetitive movements

Protect Industrial Employees from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

The human body is a well-crafted machine but as wonderful as it is, it has its limits. For tasks that cannot be completed with human power alone, we use machines. It is best for you and your employees if you provide them with machines that act as extensions, working with the human body rather than causing the human form to overexert itself.

At DJ Products our mission is to provide solutions for material handling situations that are ergonomically correct, safe and cost effective. We manufacture machines that eliminate the strains and pains of manually pushing or pulling heavy carts, equipment, or materials.

Some of the wheeled carts that are used in a number of industries are quite heavy and allowing your employees to push these carts on their own may be putting them at risk. For example, our CartCaddyHD cart mover can push or pull heavy material handling carts up to 50,000 lbs.

Not only would such a cart be quite heavy, the necessity of moving it through a warehouse setting requires the kind of twisting and moving that could cause musculoskeletal injury. When attached to the swivel caster, a material handling solution like the CartCaddyHD dolly mover provides the pushing and pulling power that your employees need to turn carts smoothly and with ease.

The CartCaddyHD is just one of our many material handling solutions that offers a variable speed twist grip, allowing an operator to move the cart forwards and backwards at between 0-3 mph, while also protecting the operator from getting carpal tunnel syndrome.

To learn more about the CartCaddyHD and similar material handling solutions, call us at 800-686-2651.

Avoid Employee Injury with Industrial Tuggers

A number of recent studies show that workers do not stay home if they are sick because they cannot afford to take time off. Even if workers have paid sick days, they are often afraid to use this time because they do not want their companies to question their dedication.

This same phenomenon occurs when workers are injured on the job. Some injuries are serious and reporting them cannot be avoided. However, The Midwest Disability Blog reported on a study of construction workers found that workers are not likely to report on-the-job injuries:

“Despite being eligible to obtain workers’ compensation benefits for a work-related injury, a new study performed by researchers from Duke University Medical Center, the Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters and the Carpenters District Council of Great St. Louis and Vicinity revealed that more than 30 percent of injuries sustained by carpenters are not reported or rarely reported.”

Some workers fear being punished or pressured to not report an injury, and some even fear being fired for alerting management if they sustain an injury at work.

Although the study examined the practices of union carpenters, researchers felt that “the problem most likely included all types of workers and added that “the problem of not reporting injuries is a larger issue than what was revealed in the study.”

Whatever your workplace policy regarding reporting injuries may be, it is best to avoid employee injury altogether. Ergonomic material handling solutions can help your employees avoid injury. We manufacture power movers and industrial tuggers that eliminate the pain and strain of manual pulling heavy carts and wheeled equipment.

The Scientific Roots and Business Applications of Ergonomics

In “Revisiting the Roots of Ergonomics,” ergoweb.com acknowledges that for many, the idea of ergonomics is nothing more than an advertising gimmick, but stresses that true ergonomics is more than a marketing label–it’s science.

Polish scholar Wojciech Jastrzebowski crafted the word “ergonomics” in 1857 when the Industrial Revolution was in full swing. This was the time when large swaths of the world’s population had gone from farm to factory. These workers used machines to do their work and in some ways they were seen as parts of a larger machine and were not always viewed as or treated as human.

However,

” According to Jastrzebowski, if we mismanage ourselves or others, not only will we achieve little or no gain, we may very well cause bigger problems.”

“Big business or small employer, the modern work world has a bottom line – profit. Make human work easier and more productive and it will increase the wealth and well being of the individual, the company, and the society. “

Ergoweb.com uses a resort to illustrate this point, noting that if a resort staff is able to carry out their work comfortably, this will make the resort a pleasant place to stay. However, if a resort is staffed with disgruntled workers, even the beautiful scenery will in not induce visitors to return to a place with an unpleasant atmosphere.

DJ Products makes material handling solutions such as cart pushers and power pullers for a number of industries, including the hospitality industry. You can call one of our Sales Engineers at 800-686-2651 for a recommendation on your proper solution.

Improve Health and Safety with the DJ Products Ergonomic Load Calculator

Sometimes older people shake their heads at the thought that many students are allowed to use calculators in school these days. And for their part, some young people ask why they have to learn how to do certain mathematical calculations without a calculator since once they leave school, they will be free to use calculators whenever they want.

At DJ Products, we know that there are some equations and problems that cannot be solved by someone counting on their fingers or making a “guesstimation.” When it comes to workplace safety, you want to make sure that you are examining the numbers and the factors as accurately as possible.

This is why we offer the DJ Products Ergonomic Load Calculator on our website. The calculator is designed to estimate the amount of horizontal force necessary to move loads (on wheels) using inputs from particular workplace environments. It doesn’t just look at numbers in isolation; the calculator will combine conditions related to the state of the “vehicle health”, floor condition, terrain and footing as well as the weight of the load being moved in estimating these forces.

When you use our ergonomic load calculator, you also input variables about the worker who is supposed to perform a certain task. In order to generate an ergonomic estimate of his much force a single worker should apply, it is important to consider that person as an individual. Ergonomic calculators and computer programs that attempt to give you this information using information for an average worker can miss the mark and when it comes to your workers ability to get the job done, you do not want to use miscalculated information.

If you use the DJ Products Ergonomic Load Calculator and want to discuss material handling solutions that might be of benefit to your workers, call us at 1-800-686-2651.

Reduce Effects of Chronic Pain with Ergonomic Material Handling Solutions

A 2011 article from BusinessInsurance.com stated, “Chronic pain is a infrequent but growing aspect of workers compensation claims…” and advised companies to try to prevent injured employees from developing chronic pain. It added that companies are seeing more reports of chronic pain because of an aging workforce.

Chronic pain can have a number of sources and the article notes that it is hard to define. Still, we would advise companies to do what they can to prevent the kinds of on-the-job injuries that lead to chronic pain. (There is little you can do about illness or injuries workers suffer outside of work.) However, you can provide equipment that is ergonomically sound and functions in concert with the musculoskeletal system. That way, the machines being used at your facility will not be the cause repeated injury among your workforce.

DJ Products makes ergonomic material handling equipment that eliminate the strain of pulling heavy products, parts carts or wheeled equipment. With our powered carts, pullers and pushers, your employees can move everything from soiled linen carts to carpets to cars. Our walk-behind units use battery power to move heavy loads efficiently so the operator is able to maintain control without feeling a lot of strain.

Purchasing material handling solutions from us won’t strain your budget either. But if you are hesitant, think about the costs of workers compensation claims and the strain on your workforce that occurs when even one employee needs to be way from work for an extended period of time.

You can contact one of our Sales Engineers at 800-686-2651 to learn more about which of our products would be best suited to your industry.

Get Ergonomic Material Handling Solutions and Work With Machines Safely

We have a tendency to separate ourselves from the mechanical inventions we use to assist us with work in a ‘man vs. machine’ fashion. Often we forget that the human body is also a remarkable machine but if you mistreat it, you can pay a heavy price. This is why DJ Products designs material handling solutions to change the way you move equipment. We make our products to move in concert with the mechanisms of the human body to eliminate the strains and pains of manually pushing or pulling heavy carts and other equipment.

And while we cannot completely eliminate the strains of the costs of running a business, we do work to make our products less costly than traditional electric equipment.

Some of our solutions include:

Ergonomic Material Handling Electric Carts for Industrial Use

• Carts with casters
• Carts with 4-swivel casters or wagon-wheel style of turning
• Carts in a straight line
• Platform Trucks & Scissor Lifts

Ergonomic Material Handling Carts for Hospitals and the Hospitality Industry
• Hospital carts
• Pulling heavy soiled linen carts
• Maneuvering clean linen metro wire carts
• Pushing stainless steel food carts
• Ergonomic powered flatbed supply carts
• Ergonomic electric flatbed carts for hauling medical supplies and records

Car Equipment Pushers and Trailer Movers for the Automotive Industry
• Car Pusher
• Trailer Mover, Puller, Pusher

Our maneuverable ergonomic material handling solutions may be smaller and lighter than what you are used to so If you need help selecting products, don’t hesitate to call us at 800-686-2651 and one of our Sales Engineers will be more than happy to assist you.

Hospitals: Help Your Staff Treat Summer Injuries

Summertime and the livin’ is easy…people like to spend time outside, getting into summer sports and being more active. We all hope for the best but we know that an increase in activity increases the chances of injury. For this reason, hospitals need to stay on alert and be ready for patients who arrive and need help after a baseball game, water skiing, a race, or an impromptu tumble down a hill.

During the summer, you need all of your staff ready to work and assist. You will want your employees ready to work and not injured themselves from attempting to hurry while transporting supplies needed for patients that arrive with injuries. DJ Products makes powered carts including a Powered Dirty Linen Cart, Powered Housekeeping Cart and a Motorized Clean Linen Wire Cart that can keep work moving efficiently and allow employees to navigate tight corners safely.

Our products can also reduce the chance that your employees will experience muscle strain or musculoskeletal injuries as they push or pull carts with heavy loads through hospital corridors. All of our products are battery powered “walk-behind units” that allow for better operator control than traditional wheeled carts. Because of this operating flexibility, our electric cart movers can be used in more applications than standard material handling equipment.

Check out our products online and if you have questions, you can call our Sales Engineers at 800-686-2651 and ask for a recommendation on your proper solution. One of our Sales Engineers will be more than happy to explore custom applications where our base products match primary criteria.

Power Tuggers Can Prevent Injury and Increase Productivity

If your employees need to transport heavy items over short distances, your workplace could definitely benefit from using industrial tuggers.

According to Safetycommunity.com:

“At a major food processing plant, workers had to manually push heavy meat carts to maneuver them between processing stations. Concerned about injury risk and worker safety, plant executives turned to DJ Products for ergonomic solutions to their material handling problem.”

The experts at DJ Products recommended the CartCaddyShorty power tugger, a motorized cart mover designed to push, pull and maneuver carts that require turning.

Safetycommunity.com highlighted the importance of finding ergonomic solutions when workers need to transport goods. An employer may think that obtaining a regular cart with wheels will solve the issue, but if that cart has not been specifically designed to help a worker maneuver without twisting the body in harmful ways, this could cause even more problems.

In addition to meat, these tuggers can carry a variety of items such as a bin full of washers, a flat bed of steel or a cart full of cookie dough.

The CartCaddy Shorty was engineered so that an employee carrying a heavy load would be able to move, turn, and maneuver it in tight spaces, such as those in a meat processing plant. Not only does this help prevent injuries, it also helps to ensure that the food being processed gets transported between stations without having a cart tip over. This tugger is the smallest, most maneuverable tug available on the market, and still has plenty of power to handle most push or pull applications.

A tugger can also increase overall productivity. A single employee can now negotiate heavy carts, which may have previously required multiple operators to maneuver. As a result, the operators eliminated from these tasks are available to take on other responsibilities.

 

 

Invest in Ergonomic Power Movers to Avoid Employee Injury

If you are wondering if it is worth your while to invest in ergonomic equipment like powered movers and warehouse tugs, keep in mind the costs associated with work injuries that are related to overexertion.

According to Risk&Insurance.com, employees who work in construction, transportation and warehousing may need a month or more to recover from injury. You probably need all your staff working at full capacity to complete projects, so having someone out can slow productivity. There are things like illness that you can’t prevent, but you can give your staff ergonomic equipment to help avoid preventable injuries that can result in lost work time and lower morale.

The article from Risk&Insurance.com discussed how,

“The median number of days away from work to recover from occupational injuries/illnesses was eight for the third consecutive year, the BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] reported. Transportation and warehousing had the highest incidence rate of all industry sectors, although it was basically unchanged from the previous year…sprains, strains, and tears accounted for 40 percent of the total cases, of which 43 resulted from overexertion.

The back was the body part injured most, at more than one-third”

DJ Products manufactures movers, trailers and tugs that can eliminate the pain and strain of manually pulling and pushing heavy carts or wheeled equipment. Our products are less costly, smaller and more maneuverable that traditional powered equipment. So if you have tried other power movers and found that you were less than satisfied, we think you will be pleased with the functionality of our products.

Please take the time to find a specific electric cart pusher on our website, or call our Sales Engineers for a recommendation on your proper solution. Our Sales Engineer will also be happy to explore custom applications where our base products match primary criteria.