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January 25, 2012
RULA (Rapid Upper Limb Assessment) is an assessment method often discussed and applied by occupational ergonomists. In this article, reprinted from The Ergonomics Report Archives, Ergoweb's Peter Budnick reviews the popular method, recognizing its strengths, but also noting that it has limitations and can be -- and perhaps often is -- horribly misapplied, misrepresented, and misinterpreted without adequate training, experience, and professional perspective.
January 18, 2012
In this reprint from The Ergonomics Report, Peter Budnick sets out to document the underlying ergonomics theories behind the design of various styles of the ubiquitous computer mouse. Tracing its beginnings back to the 1960's, he attempts to categorize them by style, such as forearm flat, forearm angled, specialized grips, touch pad, foot mouse, etc., offering a high-level opinion regarding the potential benefits and concerns for each.
January 5, 2012
On January 13, 2012, Budnick, along with Bill Boyd of CNA Insurance, will participate in a free webinar called "Current Trends in Ergonomics." The presenters will also provide an overview of their featured conference presentations.
January 5, 2012
Subscribers to The Ergonomics Report represent our most loyal readers, and tend to share Ergoweb's goals to grow the value, influence and application of ergonomics around the world. As such, we're especially interested in what this group of influential readers finds of interest. The top 5 articles accessed in The Ergonomics Report library are ...
January 3, 2012
Find out what topics were accessed the most by Ergoweb's 280,000 web site visitors in 2011. At the close of each year we review the previous year's web site statistics to learn what topics drew the most attention. We're always surprised -- and sometimes even dismayed -- by what we learn. These were the most read Ergoweb articles and discussions in 2011 ...
December 13, 2011
We previously reported that the start of enforcement for California's new Safe Patient Handling law, AB 1136, Hospital Patient and Health Care Worker Injury Protection Act, would not occur until January 2013. However, that was incorrect; the actual enforcement start date is January 1, 2012, just weeks from now. In this article, Peter Budnick revisits AB 1136, correcting the start date error, reviewing several points of confusion in the language of the law, and provides a concise, point-by-point summary of the law's key requirements.
December 13, 2011
Musculoskeletal Disorders are among the leading causes of morbidity among working aged adults and armed service members. The most common cause for medical evacuation in the Iraq war was an MSD, and MSDs are also quite common in basic training. Functional Movement Screening (FMS) is thought by many to offer a new paradigm for predicting MSDs. This study is the first large scale to test the predictive validity of this hypothesis, and the results indicate FMS is not a reliable predictor of future injury.
December 6, 2011
This article, which was originally published in The Ergonomics Report, reviews the evolution of an ergonomics process that was developed and promoted internally by Keith Osborne, a Honeywell HSE specialist. The process took some years to build, and Osborne shares how he won early successes that were used to gain management support and grow the benefits and value of ergonomics, and how he leveraged success to continuously improve and grow the process. The program now produces a significant ROI, helped gain the site OSHA VPP Star status, and has been adopted as a Honeywell best practice.
November 17, 2011
The Board of Certification in Professional Ergonomics (BCPE), the premier certification body for professional ergonomics, is seeking a part-time Executive Director. The Executive Director will be responsible for the successful leadership and management of the BCPE.