K-Line Trailers: An Ergonomics Success Story

Background

K-Line Trailers manufactures heavy-duty industrial trailers and their employees routinely perform metal work, material handling, and mechanical tasks — all of which could result in a MSI (musculoskeletal injury). While K-Line Trailers had made attempts to identify, assess and control the MSI risk to their workers, management realized that the MSI injury rate was still too high.

The Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Regulation requires that employers manage and control health and safety risks, including ergonomic risks. They also need to educate employees so they can recognize MSI risk factors in their work and the signs and symptoms of MSIs. In addition, the Regulation specifies that the employer must consult with their joint health and safety committee and a representative sample of workers on risk factor assessment, training, and the evaluation of control measures.

Taking all this into consideration, K-Line Trailers made the commitment to manage the risk of MSIs at their workplace. The following steps formed the framework for their plan:

1. Understand the concerns of workers
2. Consider the ergonomics risk factors
3. Consider the total work system
4. Identify interventions
5. Rank possible interventions
6. Implement the feasible interventions
7. Evaluate the effectiveness of the changes made
8. Continue this process

The Strain Reduction Team plan

With guidance from a WorkSafeBC Ergonomist, K-Line Trailers decided to first focus on the final assembly department. They gathered a team — including the department supervisor, the OHS Coordinator, joint committee member, and other workers who understood the work — to become K-Line Trailers’ first Strain Reduction Team (SRT).

Once discussions began, the importance of consultation between all levels in the organization quickly became apparent. At the centre of this team approach were workers as they are the ones who know which tasks are awkward to perform, where many of the problems were, and what workarounds had been used to make tasks easier. Management understood the organization-level work system and had the ability to allocate resources, and the OHS Coordinator contributed their understanding and knowledge of MSI risk identification, assessment, and control.

By working as a team, the SRT was able to rapidly identify problem tasks, explain and assess risks, recommend possible controls, determine which controls to explore, and later assess the controls’ success.

Read more

• Background
• Risk identification and understanding the concerns of workers
• Controlling the risks
• Continuous improvement
• Events and webinars

We're here to help

For resources, please visit worksafebc.com/ergonomics. If you have questions about ergonomics or human factors, or need help managing the risk of MSI in your workplace, please contact us at HumanFactors@worksafebc.com