Improving the work area: a case study

Abstract

A case study of an ergonomic intervention at a world-leading food company is presented. The marketing department decided to replace the glass container with a clear PVC container, while retaining the product's original appearance as much as possible. Introduction of this new container created many production problems, such as difficulty in gluing the label on to the bottle. However, the problem we were asked to solve was the loss of time caused by the containers tipping over at the work station where containers were loaded on to a conveyer belt. This productivity decrease meant losses of $ 125 000 annually. We first describe the methodology used to handle the problem. As usual, several constraints needed to be considered such as space, time and cost. The global concept is also presented as well as the retained solution. Finally, the benefits that resulted from the implementation are outlined, showing impressive payback of ergonomics.

Keywords:

• Workstation design
• Cost-benefit analysis
• Ergonomic intervention.