6W’s on Ergonomics workplace design

By Justine M.Y Chim

What is your dream workplace?

Aims:
6W’s of applying ergonomics in workplace design
1. Why should ergonomic principles be used in workplace design?
 Legal responsible
 Employees are legally responsible for their compliance with local OSH legislation
 Lower MSD and work load
 An ergonomic workplace design can assist the prevention of injury and disease and minimizing the
physical workload of the working person.
 Increase usability of products, equipment, work systems and facilities
 It can improve the usability of products equipment systems and facilities
 Increase productivities and reduce production costs
 Ergonomic workplace design will ultimately improve productivity and reduce the production cost
 Safe and healthy work culture
 It creates a safe and healthy work cultures.
 Increase human performance and employees’ well-being
 It will lead to creating better human performance and employees well-being it is excellent
2. Who should be consulted and considered in workplace design?
 When designing a workplace in addition to the usual and normal users of the workplace as well as people
with special needs such as wheelchair users, left-handed as well as right-handed people, people in
anthropometric extremes, people with disabilities during rehabilitation
3. When should ergonomics principles be used in workplace design?
 Design stage: Operation, Cleaning, Maintenance, Machinery Parts Assembly
 Consider: Task requirements, body movements and postures, workplace components, work
environment, feedback from operators and past injuries record
 Ergonomics should be considered starting from the design stage to effectively reduce the risk of
musculoskeletal injuries
 Companies should consider the risk factors of musculoskeletal disorder in relation to operation , cleaning
maintenance and machinery parts assembly in different stages
4. Where should ergonomic be applied in workplace designs?
 Workstation tools
 Display, storeroom, work surface, conveyor, seating, overall workplace layout, workstation, controls
 Environment & System
 Medical and Emergency System, sound absorbing system, lighting system, flooring, windows,
entrance, ventilation system
 Staff Facilities
 Gym room, canteen, breakout area, changing room
 Ergonomic principles should be applied in three areas and that is workstation and tools, environment and
systems and staff facilities
5. How should ergonomics be used in workplace?
 Furniture evaluation and selection
 Onsite walkthrough evaluation
 Task analysis
 User focused group
 Ergonomics products evaluation
 User’s trail

1
  Individual ergonomics workstation assessment
 Training and education
 Stretching exercise
6. What are the ergonomics principles in workplace design?
 Happiness, satisfaction and reduce stress
 Design an ergonomic workplace should promote employees satisfaction and well-being. The
environment comfort model of workplace quality and there are three levels of comfort:
a) Physical comfort
 Lighting
 Temperature
 Sound levels
 Furniture comfort
b) functional comfort
 facilitate the work flow and task requirements
 support individual, team and cross team efficiency
 facilitate the cooperation
c) psychological comfort
 feelings of belonging
 ownership and control over the workplace
by Justin Chim

Healthy Living – Session on Ergonomics

By Garnished from Recoup your musculoskeletal rehabilitation center

 Introduction to RSI
 Learn ergonomics concepts
 Human body: structure and functions
 Apply: ergonomic concepts to workstation design and work methods
 When to seek medical help?

2
The reason I’m here today is to understand the basic of ergonomics and to know how to save yourself from
consulting conditions called RSI.

So let me begin with this, do you have an idea what is ERGONOMICS?

Ergonomics is basically the relationship between a person, the task he or she does and the environment. The task can
be anything: using a computer, riding a bike, driving a car or working at Yoga center…. But today we focus more
about how to work with computers, the relationship between you as an employee, your computer and your
environment I which you sit.

What type of activities you do throughout your day while you’re typing.

 Are you doing any type of repetition here?

 Are you sitting throughout of the day?
 You using laptop’s….you’re using mouse or touch pad?
 You are glaring or staring throughout your monitor screen, laptop screen….

If you keep doing these activities every single day of your life, every single day in the wrong way, what will happen
there will be some type of injuries, some type of discomfort to your soft tissues and that is RSI. So RSI is repetitive
strain injuries. So these are the injuries that we can get because of doing one task over and over again in the wrong
way.

How do I know than I’m having RSI? They present as some type of pain or some type of discomfort. There are many
other symptoms found that will come later on such as numbness everything but they usually involve the neck and
upper limbs. Other part of the body may be affected but to a lesser extent.

Why knowing ergonomics and RSI is important?

Because once you get RSI, there are costs associated with it

Min 3.15