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Human Factors engineering is the application of knowledge about human capacity, expectation, and limitation, applied to the efficient use of the physical environment without injury or property loss. Our English friends call this ergonomics. Design predictability requires that one positively manipulate warnings, light, heat, sound, hearing, instructions, vision, slip resistance, fatigue, emotional response to color, known cognitive capacity and expectations, in a manner that will be in harmony and honor physical differences and limitations. Ergonomic Stressors are conditions which subject the human subject to conditions in which they will eventually be harmed with or without a provoking incident..
On
Fixed Ladder Installations
Ignores NIOSH lifting Guidelines Most of
us don't know that railroad
workers do not have workers compensation as a protection whe
Cumulative Trauma Disorders A large percentage of industrial accidents cannot be traced to a single event at a single moment. After stressing the body in an improper way for an extended period, the weakest part just breaks.
Ignores Principals of Fire Protection
Ignored
Life Safety and ADA Codes When the municipal auditorium painted the steps at an outdoor theater they were trying to eliminate a recognized hazard. But when the footlights were turned off, the pedestrian was left blind to hazards as they entered the arena. Click Tristan's Decent to Hell
Articulated Ladder User Hostile The manufacturer says that most accidents Predictable Accidents Every year a
customers will be hit by cars
across the front of convenience stores. Should the entry of a
convenience store
be protected from motor vehicle intrusion? That depends Is intrusion
something
one would predict?
Nice Work WD
Click Task Blindness Task blindness exist any time
the physical demands of a task keep a person from seeing something upon
which successful completion of the task depends. For example, the scale
of the slip meter is a protractor located on the right side. Adjusting
for parallax, one aligns a needle with a legend. In order to read a
With the left hand, the operator operates the mast. With his right hand, he operates the angle wheel with a knob, pushes the trigger button and holds a level in place. The level is a recent addition. Users discovered the device is not "Independent of Gravity". The third hand keeps the meter from falling into the Atlantic ocean. If you look carefully at the photo, you will see that there is no way the operator could ever read the scale while operating the machine. Not every tool can be used in every situation. |
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The Handicapped Corral A western fiesta
offers one hundred
eighty handicapped parking places in one spot on the side of a hill.
The surface
is covered with pot holes. One sign marks the area and it has been hit
by cars
many times. In some cases, the nearest parking place is four
hundred feet from the entry gate. This area is called In most cases, dangerous facilities are not the result of malice but of ignorance. If designers at this fiesta had understood the nature and limitations of its users, this dehumanizing parking lot would not have been built. Click on photo Price Saving Genius Would you believe that
a major brand
cat food manufacturer saves $ .002 per item by using a steel can with
zip open
lid as opposed to an aluminum can of the same design. The steel
can
requires 13 pounds of force to open, the aluminum can only Department of Defense Human Factors Lab limits single finger opening force for men at eight pounds and four pounds for women. A Hop, Skip, and Fall
A five
year old girl visiting Wally World played on a step in the darkening
hours of the evening. As she jumped, hopped, and
 played, her foot became stuck in a cavity
between the riser of a decorative step and the ground. Momentum carrier
her forward. The fall resulted in a brain injury and a lifetime of
complications.. Rare, not really. Foot trap accidents are less common
now that display counters have systematically removed them. You must
eliminate spots where a foot can be trapped by an inadvertent misstep
in general practice. Click photo Logical Error Intuition can be dangerous. Twelve point sockets round the surface of a bolt when used with power tools. They destroy the projections both in the socket and on the project, a real bummer. Standard six point sockets do not strip themselves, but often explode. Only the designated impact sockets with stronger internal walls are safe in all three situations. Unfortunately, none of these sockets come with instructions. Its a game of socket roulette. |
| Safety Shoes v. Safe Shoes
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The
textured surface in the center of a rung should be 8 inches on a
sixteen inch rung. There must be four inches minimum at each end for the hand to
hold a smooth round surface. The center should be
smooth but textured. The quality of the abrasion is critical. .If the
surface is too rough or falls into unreasonable patterns cotton gloves
may stick on it and disrupt the climbing sequence causing a loss of
balance at 15-20 ft height.. A texture of 20U-m is
usually adequate..
n
they are hurt on the job. In most cases, railroad workers are not
entitled to
workers compensation or OSHA protection. A worker must prove employer
negligence
to recover losses.
This simple flight of stairs doesn't begin to qualify as the
world's worst. It is just average. It is hard to know what the builders
thought they were doing. This is their showplace. A.
Stairs too steep, pedestrian can't properly access leading edge of
step, especially with two lights that only light the landing and sixth
step. B. The handrail is worthless. Its too high and displaced
horizontally. Stain marks on rail show that pedestrians panic and grab
the handrail on the third step, but must release it to continue. C.
Steps in the middle sit in complete darkness and are dirty. D.
The surface has decayed and been improperly repaired-then repaired
again.. E. leading edge missing at critical points, the concrete itself
was not properly cured.
happen
because the user doesn't lock one of the hinges. Da! The
two hundred
and fifty word sticker on this ladder doesn't help. There are 107
ways to set up this articulated ladder incorrectly at any one time, and
one
(perhaps) that is correct. The six hinges with three locking
positions can
not be viewed by standing in any one place. The color guide shown
in
the instruction diagrams doesn't exist. In order to see if the
legs are
locked, one must view each hinge separately, but even that is
confusing.
At first, the position of the activating lever seems to indicate a
locked hinge,
but no, sometimes locked is to one side, sometimes the
other. Its mind
boggling. This product demands too much of the user.
six. The Consumer
Product Safety Commission knows about complaints from those who have
been cut
trying to open this thing but simple cuts fall within their threshold
of
inaction. The product manufacturer's records show a history of nine
thousand
complaints from people who have been cut opening the steel can. You
see, no
problem!
