Genie Industries is a major manufacturer of aerial work platforms, which are used all over the world. During the past 42 years, Genie's culture has grown to include team-based, innovative business approaches, including lean manufacturing. Most production operations are in Washington state, but current growth includes new plants elsewhere in the U.S., Asia, and Europe.
In 2007, Genie Industries began a concerted effort to significantly reduce injuries and illnesses in its North American manufacturing facilities. With 40% of these injuries musculoskeletal in nature, improving workplace ergonomics was a key strategy. This session shares the approach, elements, experiences, and lessons learned by Genie Industries while deploying an ergonomic improvement process integrated within a lean manufacturing organization. The purpose is to share the general steps of the ergonomics process, deployment challenges, effective practices, and lessons learned.
In late 2006, after years of exponential growth, Genie Industries took a hard look at its safety performance. The lost time case rate for its Washington manufacturing sites had increased each year from 2004 through 2006, while the total injury and illness rate remained 1.5 times the national average for Genie's industry. The company recognized the need to reduce workplace injuries and illness not only from a business standpoint, but because the organization cared about the well-being of the "Team Members" working for and contributing to Genie's success. Under the direction of senior management, Genie launched three major strategies for improvement: work environment, behavior-based safety, and ergonomics.
Genie began establishing an ergonomics process in 2001, motivated by the Washington State Ergonomics Standard. Safety professionals identified and selected assessment tools, developed education for both Team Members and engineers, and prepared a formal ergonomics program. A reduction in Genie's workforce in late 2001 and 2002, followed by rapid growth in 2004 through 2006, strained the implementation of the ergonomics program. In 2006, management confirmed its commitment to improving workplace ergonomics, with a slightly different approach; to quickly establish a process that added value to the business, and to leverage best practices, the company chose to partner with ergonomics consulting resources outside of the organization. After reviewing several options, the Genie Safety staff and operations managers selected Humantech, a leader in ergonomics and performance, as their partner for this improvement opportunity. Since Genie Industries operates with a lean manufacturing philosophy, Humantech's experience with Toyota was a key factor in their selection.
Genie Industries' approach to managing ergonomics was based on elements of programs and processes learned from successful organizations:
Require commitment, sponsorship, and ownership by top management.
Drive ergonomics as an engineering discipline with the Safety department.
Manage improvement as a process, not a program. To ensure success, the improvement process had to be sustainable over time and as organizational and leadership changes occurred.
Focus on reducing risk factors of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). By focusing on the exposure (risk factors) instead of consequences (WMSDs), plants would proactively identify, anticipate, and prevent losses.
