Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Ergonomics Management with a Proactive Focus

2015; Elsevier BV; Volume: 3; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.promfg.2015.07.465

2351-9789

Priscila Rodrigues Fernandes, Ana Lúcia Berretta Hurtado, Eduardo Concepción Bátiz,

Occupational Health and Safety in Workplaces

Ergonomics programs tend to be reactive when considering employees' complaints, absence from work, quantity of work accidents and occupational diseases. When organizations do not anticipate future occurrences with a proper model of risk management, they become vulnerable. In order to organize the Ergonomics Program of a household appliance company in Joinville, a team of 9 persons was structured, and two committees were reactivated. The technical committee discussed ergonomic solutions with the engineering department to adequate workplaces and new projects. The employees' complaints were discussed by the medical committee in order to analyze the causal nexus based on ergonomic evaluations of the problem. The proactive demand was identified by an ergonomic planning of all manufacturing workplaces which led to the prioritization of ergonomic evaluations considering risk classification. Several training courses were conducted aiming to spread out the values of ergonomics principles. Then, the resilience engineering principles (learning/responding/monitoring/anticipation) were proposed to ergonomics management, making it possible to monitor the ergonomic processes and create integrated indicators. The implementation of the model developed in this study has already achieved two meaningful awards in the ergonomics area: the gold award for the best case study of ergonomics and the award for the best case study of the South Region of Brazil. Besides, the model has brought many advantages for both company and employees, providing success in the management of ergonomic risks, promoting employees' health and decreasing absenteeism.