Manufacturing Division
This section contains:
- Introduction: results the manufacturing division delivers
- How do we deliver such incredible results? The Easy to Implement and Maintain 3 Step System
- Sample Initial Risk Assessment: What risks do we find hiding in plain sight? What problems can they cause in injury and production? How are they solved?
- Return On Investment: What are the actual costs of not solving the problem?
Introduction
Best Performance Systems Manufacturing division attains results so fantastic potential new clients finds them difficult to believe.
For that reason we are usually dependent on referrals from clients that have experienced our system and the predictable benefits.
We have had a 100% success rate since 1995, average a 50-90% injury and work comp cost reduction, as well as significant improvements in productivity and reduction of waste.
Best Performance Systems partnered with a High Precision Aerospace Manufacturing company in March 2010. Within 11 months they had work related injury costs reduce from $3 Million to $1.3 Million, and waste and rework costs reduced from $6 Million to $2 Million. We cannot take full credit for the waste and rework improvements as there were several complementary programs contributing to this.
Not only are the savings we deliver immediate and significant, but the results are easily sustained by simply applying the simple Best Performance Systems consistently. Another client was spending $800,000 per year on injuries. The next two years they spent $35,000, and the third year they reported a 94% injury reduction.
3 Keys To Our Record Breaking Success
Customization
Best Performance Systems partners with you to customize everything so it fits your organization like a glove! This makes it easy to implement and it soon becomes the culture of your company.
Reinforcement
Best Performance Systems structures reminders & rewards into every part of the system so safety and efficiency becomes a habit. Without reinforcement every insightful, exciting new behavior and strategy reverts back to old patterns.
Positive Communication
Best Performance Systems successfully influences supervisors to communicate so workers feel respected. Workers are receptive to and involved on an ongoing basis to improve the safety and efficiency of their environment, even helping each other.
How Do We Predictably Deliver Such Incredible Results? The Easy To Implement And Maintain 3 Step System
Every program is customized, not only for each company, but for each department within the company.
Each program starts with the foundation of our six step system, then is customized to the organization.
Please see the “Program” section of this site for a detailed description of the 3 step system.
Easy To Implement & Maintain 3 Step System (Abridged description)
1. Company Assessment & Customization
Evaluate corporate culture, employee habits, equipment, procedures and injury history. Conduct anonymous surveys and interviews. Customize bilingual and bicultural materials.
2. Training Phase
Front Line Employee Training
The training program is motivational, interactive, experiential and fun. Behavior Modification and Accelerated Learning Techniques motivate employees to become enthusiastic participants who want to change to healthier work habits.
- Employees learn 5-second exercises to use throughout the day based on how they feel at the moment. Employees experience immediate relief and as a result continue to use the exercises for years.
- Employees learn to customize their techniques and tools to fulfill their jobs safely and efficiently through an obstacle course. They perform their work as they always have, then again with a new technique. We ask employees which works best for them. They inevitably pick the correct methods. People willingly change their habits because they buy in and believe it is their idea.
Supervisor Training
Supervisors are trained to recognize, reward and reinforce the safest and most efficient work habits on a daily basis, with little time and effort. The positive reinforcement techniques Supervisors learn result in a happier and more efficient workplace – the key to greater retention and high-quality productivity.
Positive Reinforcement Reminder & Incentive Program
We keep it simple in a profound way. Innovative easy-to-implement-and-maintain customized programs are the key to sustaining employees’ new work habits for years to come. And they LOVE it!
Management Controls
Management has a simple system to keep track of participation which empowers them to guarantee company wide participation.
3. Integration Phase
The Integration Phase is the necessary component for the program to be successful. This is a significant contributory reason Best Performance Systems uniquely has a 100% success rate.
The initial trainings motivate and educate the workers and supervisors. The new learned skills are not yet habitual and it is human nature that what is not consistently applied is soon forgotten. If all levels of your staff do not remember and apply the skills, the training is a waste of your time and resources.
In the 3 months Integration Phase, Best Performance Systems works with the company, stimulating all staff members in many ways to use the safe and efficient skills, to apply the reminder and reward systems …until they become a habit. It will be effectively applied daily and for years.
The Best Performance Systems program is customized to each company. This phase has basic components, but includes an evaluation of the evolving culture and responds to what is going on in the company.
Basic components of the Integration phase:
- 1-2 one hour meetings with supervisors per month for additional skills and assist with challenges in Ergonomics, employee technique and influencing workers to embrace new and efficient techniques. (Delegating, motivating, positive communication, coaching, Team Building, Accident investigation, sparking creativity and more)
- Supervisors learn to deliver 30 second pre-shift mini trainings. Delivered 1-5 times per week, each is an interactive reminder of some aspect of the training the workers received. Best Performance Systems assists the supervisor staff to get them confident and competent in the delivery.
- Meet with Supervisors to enhance ability to recognize the activities and situations to reward with a Kudos card
- Meet with workers in pre-shift meetings and on the production floor to get their ideas, complaints and suggestions. Take these and the list from the workshops and meet with management to prioritize and take action on several worker generated ideas. Once done, celebrate the workers whose ideas are used. Best Performance Systems influences your entire staff to be proactive at making positive changes in “their” workplace.
- Attend first 2-3 safety raffles and assist management to maximize the opportunity to train and influence efficiency.
- Best Performance Systems actively works with staff to develop “Ergo Teams”: 2-4 workers with problems or complaints are assisted by a supervisor and several peers to correct technique, ergonomics and apply stretch to eliminate physical stress.
Kaizen Continuous Improvement Program
Upon completion of training and integration, our team continues to guide the gradual and continuous improvement of safety, efficiency and productivity.
Sample Initial Risk Assessment
Jean-Eric Aerospace Fasteners
Initial Observations-Risks Observed-Proposed Solutions
Below are a few observations of significant stressors that will be easy to correct and will have a significant positive effect on worker comfort and improved productivity.
When the project begins, a detailed evaluation will be performed.
When a specific ergonomic correction is made, it may result in other ergonomic issues that need to be addressed. An example would be the keyboard is on a desktop; the chair is raised so the arms, hand and wrist are ergonomically placed. The monitor may then have to be raised and a footstool supplied.
This report gives only mechanical/physical solutions. To successfully reduce stress & injuries and increase high quality productivity, the workers must be:
- Motivated to change their habits to healthier ones at work and at home
- Learn to ergonomically adjust their workstation & tools based on how they feel and the task they are doing at the moment
- Apply proper biomechanical technique
- Apply achievable techniques to reduce stress at work
- Apply all of the above consistently on a long-term basis
Chairs
You have excellent chairs for production staff. Height adjustable.
None had proper low back support. Workers were not trained to position the chair height or distance from the workstation to maintain proper ergonomic posture.
Set up of bench top equipment also effects this posture.
As a result, most workers observed had their spine flexed forward, and their head flexed down.
The lateral neck muscles shorten over time, which causes a compression of the nerves and blood vessels, which pass thru them on the way to the arm. This is known as Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. The condition is usually symptom free, but the resultant decreased blood flow to and from the arm increases the tendency to various repetitive stress injuries [RSI] such as carpel tunnel, hand, wrist and elbow tendonitis and myofascitis [the muscles are tense and achy].
In addition, the chronic tension results in significant muscle weakness making the worker prone to sprains and strains from otherwise innocent activities.
The forward head and upper back posture also results in posterior deformation of disc tissue, which eventually will mechanically irritate the spinal cord and nerve roots. In the neck this can cause muscle tension, headache, neck pain, and pain traveling into the arm and hand. In the upper back this can cause a well-localized deep ache or a sharp pain between the shoulder blades.
Train each worker to adjust chair height, place low back pillow, and adjust benchtop equipment so spinal power postures are unconsciously maintained. This will be different for each worker and may vary between job tasks with the same worker. This will eliminate stress, reduce pain, inflammation and tension, and increase energy, endurance and productivity.
Sitting without properly positioned low back support.
No chairs observed had proper low back support.
These forward bending postures of the spine also result in a posterior deformation of the disc tissue. These mildly bulging disc tissues irritate the nerves and spinal cord, which are directly behind them, and cause symptoms as mild as tension, ache, and headache, or as severe as pain, tingling, and numbness traveling down the arm or leg. In some cases there is a loss of coordination and strength, which in the early stages will manifest in the arms as dropping things, making mistakes when typing or doing hand work, or hands and arms fatiguing easily. In the legs it appears as difficulty climbing stairs or rising from a crouched position, fatigue from walking, and difficulty performing complex movements.
- A] Chair with adjustable size and height Lumbar support.
- B] Add Lumbar pillow to your seat.
- C] Roll a towel and secure with rubber bands.
- D] Roll a sweater or sweatshirt at a restaurant, movie, or meeting.
- E] If the operator leans forward when working, sit on a foam wedge or use forward tilt option on the chair. This tilts the pelvis forward, maintaining the low back curve, and positions the head properly above the body.
Bench top equipment and material are positioned so the worker must reach for them.
shoulder. The length, height, and time of upper extremity reaching, even without a load, creates a very large mechanical stress to these small and confined shoulder tendons. Early signs are prolonged ache, sharp pain with certain positions or movements, arm fatigue, arms feeling heavy, or restricted motion.
When the arm is held out for prolonged periods, the neck muscles engage to assist supporting it. The prolonged contraction leads to tension, fatigue, headache and neck pain.
Workers will be trained to spend as little as 5 seconds arranging the bench in the most efficient manner for each job task.
Another solution will be training to use foam objects to support the upper limbs while performing specific tasks.
Equipment and product is positioned or angled so wrist is bent while working. This could be flexed, extended, ulnar, or radial deviated.
Adjust equipment, as well as chair height, so wrists are straight while working. During this adjustment, also make sure that the elbows are relaxed at the side, there is an open elbow angle, and the wrists are straight.
You can also use various foam objects to support this optimum behavior. Jean-Eric staff will be taught to produce custom foam supports for any worker that requests it.
The time to create them will be 1-3 minutes and the cost will be less than a dollar per workstation.
Return on Investment
According to Cal Osha, the average medical cost of an injury in a manufacturing environment is $15,000 plus the indirect costs of $17,000 for a total cost of approximately $32,000. Some injuries require doctor visits or modified work days, but others can lead to extensive lost time days and Workers’ Compensation claims dragging on from one year to the next with costs going as high as a $100,000 or more.
Let’s assume that Jean-Eric Aerospace Fasteners has a profit margin of 10%. To recoup the money for ONE injury of $32,000, Jean-Eric Aerospace Fasteners would have to earn $320,000 in total sales!
Then, there is the even greater cost of lost productivity. A University based study indicates that the cost of lost productivity may be 4 times greater than the medical costs. If this is correct then a $32,000 injury may be closer to $100,000.
Best Performance Systems can be a PROFIT CENTER for Jean-Eric Aerospace Fasteners
through the dollar savings our program delivers
- Preventing only one serious injury saves you the cost of our entire program -