Ergonomics Audit Program

AET, 1138-1140 checklists, 1137-1145 ERGO/BEAM/ERNAP, 1141-1143 Ergonomic Checkpoints, 1144 Ergonomics Audit Program, 1139, 1141 lEA Checklist, 1137, 1138 Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ), 1137-1139... 

Such changes in the structure of the ergonomics/human factors profession indeed demand different evaluation methodologies. A powerful network of individuals, for example, who can, and do, call for human factors input in a timely manner can help an enterprise more than a number of individually successful project outcomes. Audit programs are one of the ways in which such evaluations can be made, allowing a company to focus its human factors resources most effectively. They can also be used in a prospective, rather than retrospective, manner to help quantify the needs of the company for ergonomics/human factors. Finally, they can be used to determine which divisions, plants, departments, or even product fines are in most need of ergonomics input. 

Ideally, an audit system would be broad enough to cover any task in any industry, would provide highly detailed andysis and recommendations, and would be applied rapidly. Unfortunately, the three variables of breadth, depth, and application time are likely to trade off in a practical system. Thus a thermal audit (Parsons 1992) sacrifices breadth to provide considerable depth based on the heat balance equation but requires measurement of seven variables. Some can be obtained rapidly (air temperature, relative humidity), but some take longer (clothing insulation value, metabolic rate). Conversely, structured interviews with participants in an ergonomics program (Drury 1990a) can be broad and rapid but quite deficient in depth. 

On another level, the audit was a useful reminder to the company of the fact that it had incurred most of the up-front costs of a corporate ergonomics program, and was now beginning to reap the benefits. Indeed, by 1996, corporate injury costs and rates had decreased by about 20% per year after... 

The intent of the chapter was not to offer an inspection process for every facet of a warehouse safety and health program. Within this book there are inspection forms for ergonomics, fire, new employee orientation programs, lockout/ tagout, and racking. This chapter focused on three specific inspecting and auditing processes. 

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