EME European Month of Ergonomics October 2010 Ergonomics – a Key to Safe Maintenance

1. EME • European Month of Ergonomics • October 2010 • Ergonomics – a Key to Safe Maintenance

2. What is EME 2010 ? • European month of ergonomics (EME) is the yearly campaign for promotion of ergonomics in Europe • EME is initiated by the FEES, Federation of European Ergonomic Societies, and implemented by the national ergonomics societies • EME 2010 supports the yearly Healthy Workplace -campaign of OSHA, European Agency for Safety and Health at Work. In 2010-2011 the topic of this campaign is: • Safe maintenance • EME 2010 focuses on ergonomics of maintenance: • Ergonomics – a Key to Safe Maintenance

3. Maintenance – a high risk activity • Our environment and equipment – buildings, workplaces, machines, vehicles etc. - are planned mainly for their main purpose – not for maintenance • Maintenance may take place anywhere - not always in well designed and organized workplaces • Maintenance takes often place in dangerous environments and processes – e.g. power plants, chemical industry, electronic systems

4. Typical to maintenance activity • Maintenance procedures are often poorly planned • Maintenance experts take seldom part in the design of systems – real requirements of maintenance are easily ignored • Maintenance personnel are not always familiar with the local circumstances and hazards • Maintenance is often carried out in parallel with other activities, e.g. the production process – hazardous situations are evident • Maintenance is not a routine activity – unexpected situations occur

5. What is ergonomics? • Ergonomics is knowledge and skills for fitting the environment, equipment and activities to people (for IEA1 definition of ergonomics, see www.fees-network.org) • The aim is both to improve well-being of people and to enhance productivity of systems • Ergonomics is optimally considered in the design processes, for proactive and cost-effective application • With the help of ergonomics, good work environments can be created! • 1 IEA – International Ergonomics Association, www.iea.org

6. Fields of ergonomics • For practical application of ergonomics, the following subfields are identified: • physical ergonomics – e.g. postures and movements, physical workload, manual material handling, workplace design • cognitive (or mental) ergonomics – e.g. information processing, mental workload, human-computer interface, planning of given information • organizational ergonomics – e.g. consideration of work organization, work processes and working hours, development of work activity

7. Ergonomics for maintenance • Ergonomics is a key to safe maintenance! • Ergonomics makes maintenance lighter, more fluent and more acceptable – and safer • Proper ergonomics design takes account of the life-cycle of systems: besides their daily operation, also assembly, maintenance, cleaning, reparation, renovation and dismantling • By following the ergonomics design principles, guidelines and procedures, given in European ergonomics standards (EN), maintenance conditions and activities can be optimized to the worker/operator • See the following examples of ergonomics considerations in maintenance activity – presented in order of their nature, physical, cognitive or organizational >>>

8. Physical aspects of maintenance 1 • Physical problems in maintenance work: • working in unfavorable locations (e.g. in high places, in narrow spaces) • working in awkward postures • insufficient space for the hand movements or seeing • lack of free maintenance space • excessive force required for operations • e.g. in changing of components, in opening valves • excessive physical workload in some tasks • e.g. changing pumps without hoisting equipment • poor lighting and thermal conditions, high noise and vibrations levels • hazards, e.g. mechanical, electric, chemical

9. Physical aspects of maintenance 2 • Guidelines for physical working conditions exist, e.g.: • European ergonomics (and safety) standards1for the design of e.g.: • passageways and stairs (EN ISO 14122-series) • acceptable postures and forces (EN-1005-series) • access openings, for the whole body and body parts (EN 547-series) • environmental factors (lighting, temperature etc.) (e.g. EN 12464, EN ISO 11399) • 1 standards are distributed by the national associations for standardization - for the list of EN ergonomics standards, see also • http://www.cen.eu/cen/Sectors/TechnicalCommitteesWorkshops/CENTechnicalCommittees/Pages/Standards.aspx?param=6104&title=CEN/TC%20122

10. Physical aspects of maintenance 3 • In example, to ease physical load and to enhance safety: • - design and locate the checkpoints and maintenance objects to minimize moving distances and to facilitate easy and safe maintenance • use proper equipment to move, and to reach maintenance points • use proper tools to perform the maintenance tasks example 1: a typical poor posture example 2: a support for the operator

11. Cognitive aspects of maintenance 1 • Cognitive (or mental) problems of maintenance work: • visually poor displays and symbols, text not legible in varying environment • use of maintenance equipment not intuitive • maintenance procedures not logical, memorable or controllable • instructions not easy-to-understand • disturbance situations poorly instructed or guided • other activities around, attention directed elsewhere

12. Cognitive aspects of maintenance 2 • Guidelines for cognitive consideration of the equipment and activities exist, e.g.: • European ergonomics standards1for the design of e.g.: • displays and textual information (e.g. character size) (EN 894-series) • presentation of information (EN 894-series) • human work activities in regard to human cognition (EN 894-series) • human work activities in order to control mental workload(EN ISO 10075-series) • 1 standards are distributed by the national associations for standardization

13. Cognitive aspects of maintenance 3 • In example, to improve cognitive performance and to ease mental workload • plan proper visual information • plan logical procedures • plan reliable and safe operation example: information of the balance point of an object to be lifted

14. Organizational aspects of maintenance 1 • Organizational problems of maintenance: • inappropriate division of tasks between the operator and the machine – e.g. lack of equipment for lightening heavy tasks • inappropriate division of tasks between operators – unbalanced workload • inappropriate working hours (shifts, extensive work periods) – reduced physical and mental performance • poor communication between operators • poor guidance of the operators

15. Organizational aspects of maintenance 2 • Apply ergonomics design principles1 for organizing work: • plan the work tasks properly • organize the jobs to avoid overload of single operators • ensure good communication and collaboration between all operators in the site – use various channels, e.g. intra, papers, speech in meetings, introduction of maintenance personnel • require safety knowledge from maintenance operators • give guidance to maintenance operators about local risks • 1 for ergonomics design principles, see EN ISO 6385 and EN 614-series

16. Ergonomics approach and methods • Guidelines not enough - ergonomics design approach also important: • Participation and collaboration in design • e.g. consideration of the view, experience and knowledge of maintenance experts and maintenance operators • Study of real work • all possible details can be observed by studying existing maintenance activities • Experimental design by models and tests • critical situations can be tested by simulations of operations e.g. at the workplace or with the help of models • Maintenance activity vary a lot – to have the picture of the activity, and to make appropriate measures, use ergonomics design approach!

17. Ergonomics is beneficial • With the help of ergonomics knowledge and ergonomics approach, the maintenance conditions and activities inherently become good for the operator and good for the organization: • better satisfaction, motivation and commitment of the operator • lower rate of accidents and fewer sick leaves • less disturbancies and losses due to human error • better quality, less careless work • fluent and cost-effective maintenance, right operations in the correct way, in a minimum time, with minimum effort • by proper ergonomics design, less need for corrections later, less costs of late changes

18. - TOWARDS EME 2011 -- examples & experiences • Look around you and you will see a lot of good or bad examples of maintenance conditions or activities • PLEASE REPORT those to the Communication and Promotion Committee of the FEES ! • This year 2010 EME is an introduction to the topic – the next year 2011 EME is focusing on practical applications of maintenance • Therefore, experiences from the national ergonomics societies (from the researchers, ergonomists, occupational health and safety specialists, operators etc.) are welcome • Please forward your contribution (a comment, suggestion, example, report, review etc.), to the chair of the Committee, Tommaso Bellandi tommasobellandi@gmail.com

19. Thank you • Let us make this world safer and healthier place to work and live! • Let us make it with the help of ERGONOMICS! • Thank you for your interest! • The FEES-campaign European Month of Ergonomics to promote ergonomics in Europe • FEES – Federation of European Ergonomics Societies www.fees-network.org