Can you afford ergonomic articulating lifts to ease the muscular stress on your workers?
The better question to ask is can you afford not to.
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons reports an estimated 186 million work days are lost each year to back pain. Added to back pain are overexertion, falls and repetitive-use injuries as among the most common forms of worksite injury, resulting in $1 billion dollars per week in direct U.S. workers’ compensation costs, as reported by the 2012 Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index.
We can throw a lot of numbers at you about back injuries and body strains, but the U.S. Department of Labor has a single number to give you – one. The Department of Labor identifies back injuries as the nation’s no. 1 workplace safety issue.
So why risk your employee’s health and your bottom line when you can do something about it?
What you can do depends on the workplace you run, and training on proper lifting and ergonomic practices can be very helpful in reducing musculoskeletal disorder cases, that is injuries or pain in the body’s joint, tendons and structures supporting the neck, back and limbs.
The Department of Labor notes that lifting which begins below the knees or above the shoulders is more strenuous to the body than lifting between those two points. There’s also a greater risk of injury when obstructions prevent a worker’s body from making the contact with the object being lifted.
The other advice the Labor Department has is for employees to install mechanical aids, such as pneumatic lifts and materials handling equipment. Not surprisingly, worker in freight, stock and material handlers are among the most prone to workplace caused musculoskeletal disorders, as are employees in manufacturing plants.
Perhaps also not too surprisingly, the pneumatic, hydraulic and electric heavy duty industrial manipulators, 3-D part manipulators and ergonomic articulated lifts that we make at TDA Buddy are the kinds of equipment that can prevent these kinds of injuries. What you have to do first, however, is walk through your operations, talk to your workers and study the reports of lost days due to back pains and related injuries. Then you can begin consideration of what you can do for the better health of your employees and improved operations.
If after all that, you think TDA Buddy can help, give us a call. There’s no pain in lifting a telephone receiver.