What is ergonomics?
Ergonomics is all about fitting the work environment to the needs and capabilities of the people who function within it. As the UK’s Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors explains,
Rather than expecting people to adapt to a design that forces them to work in an uncomfortable, stressful or dangerous way, ergonomists and human factors specialists seek to understand how a product, workplace or system can be designed to suit the people who need to use it.
According to OSHA, 65% of all warehouse injuries are caused by manual activities such as lifting and carrying heavy materials. That’s why the biggest threats to warehouse and distribution center workers are from musculoskeletal soft tissue injuries, which occur twice as often in those settings as in other industrial environments. It’s just these kinds of injury exposures that good ergonomic design aims to minimize. As the CDC puts it,
The goal of ergonomics (i.e. the scientific study of people at work) is to prevent soft tissue injuries and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) caused by sudden or sustained exposure to force, vibration, repetitive motion, and awkward posture. Our the Latest Loading & Unloading Conveyor take this into account.
