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Productivity and Injury Risk Improvements at a Mail and Distribution Center

Case Study

ErgoFit Consulting was called in to assess the following ergonomic issues:

• A nationwide mail and distribution center was seeing high workers compensation insurance premiums, direct medical costs, and associated indirect costs as a result of having 23 soft tissue injuries among 16 employees over a two-and-a-half year period.

ErgoFit Consulting identified the following risk factors:

1. Employees handled individual packages up to seven times each
2. Poor job rotation forced employees to be exposed to the same heavy, repetitive, or awkward posture risks each day
3. Redundant package delivery trips each day wasted time and money
4. Poor package loading techniques created high injury risks and inefficiencies
5. Poor layout of equipment and work tasks created injury risks and inefficiencies
6. Poor placement of shipping materials and packages created high injury risks and inefficiencies

ErgoFit Consulting performed the following interventions to minimize both injuries and inefficiencies:

• Ergonomic engineering solutions including:

1. Equipment recommendations
2. Safe placement of packages and bins

• Space and workflow redesign including:

1. Consolidation and elimination of wasted space

• Work process and work method modifications including:

1. Elimination of redundant package handling
2. Elimination of 19 delivery trips per day
3. Injury risk exposure reduction with a formal job rotation through heavy and light work tasks

• Customized body mechanics and ergonomic awareness training
• The ErgoFit Consulting warm up program and training session (called Shift Prep! – Joint Stabilization)

The implementation of ErgoFit Consulting’s recommendations led to the following tangible and non-tangible benefits:

1.  13% reduction in near misses in the first year
2.  583 days without a recordable incident (as of Sept., 2008)
3.  A $9,630 productivity savings over the course of the first year in two core areas due to faster processing times
4.  19 delivery trips per day eliminated which resulted in:
   1. Fuel savings
   2. Maintenance savings
   3. Staff time savings
5.  Increased safe work practices as a result of ErgoFit training sessions
6.  Payroll reduced by the elimination of one full-time employee as a result of improved efficiencies

This resulted in a two month ROI !!

As established by a third party.

Not including fleet vehicle maintenance savings or reduced near miss administration time.