Improving Panel Handling

Overview

The problem that TMP Manufacturing Company is trying to solve is the handling of the panels that they manufacture. These panels can vary in size ranging from 11.5” by 70” to 46” by 300”. The fact that these panels can become very large creates a problem for the workers. Even though the panels are not heavy to lift, the length of them can cause a struggle when being picked up and moved around the manufacturing plant. They are currently picked up and moved around manually by the employees. This has caused harm to the workers’ backs in the past, and it can cause further injuries if the current procedure is continued.

Objectives

It is the goal of this project to improve this procedure for the safety of the employees. A plan must be developed for a way to minimize stress on the workers’ body parts as they lift, twist, and turn the panels. This is important to their safety so that nobody ends up getting hospitalized due to work-related injuries. Background research has been the first step in coming up with a solution. It is important that the size and shape of the panels, the process of moving these panels, and how the workers pick them up are all thoroughly understood before generating solutions to this issue.

Approach

Our plan was to provide an alternate way for the employees to lift and move the panels so that there will be minimum strain on the back. Our alpha prototype was multiple drawings of different types of lifting strap designs. We introduced these to our sponsor, and he helped us choose which would be best for his workers. Our beta prototype was a nonfunctional design with the goal to visually show what we plan for the straps to look like. Finally, our final prototype involved purchasing two different types of lifting straps and trying them out with a panel ourselves. Creating three different prototypes was very helpful towards finding the best final solution. We changed our solution a few times throughout, and we are now confident that we have come up with the most effective and efficient solution to improve the safety of the workers. In order to quantify the reduction in risk, the group decided to calculate a Cumulative Trauma Disorder Risk Index on both the existing lifting procedure as well as the implementation of the lifting straps. Cumulative Trauma Disorders (CTDs) typically refer to a class of musculoskeletal disorders resulting from stress on the body over an extended period of time. We ended up getting a score of 3.587 for the initial process, and the score went down to 0.8154 for the new process we designed. A score above 1 signifies present risk of injury associated with the process, so, based off of this, you can see our solution significantly lowers the risk.

Outcomes

For the final product, we purchased lifting straps from a reliable website with good reviews that would best suit our needs. This way we can be sure that our final product is reliable and has undergone the proper testing to withstand the weight of the panels. Our sponsor kindly delivered us a panel, so we were able to test the two different lifting straps with the panel. We will be giving both straps to our sponsor so that he can introduce them to his employees. This way, the workers will be able to choose which they prefer, and our sponsor can order more of that design. Lifting the panel with the straps requires two people, and it showed us how much easier it was to pick the panels up. Most of the work is done using the arms, and none of it requires picking any weight up using your back. This satisfies the objective of our project because it allows the employees to pick up the weight of the panels easily without straining or putting any pressure on their back. Additionally, utilizing the lifting straps leaves no room for bad lifting form. It does not require bending down while picking up the weight of the panel, so there should not be a way that the workers can use bad lifting form to pick it up.