A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of presenting a short seminar for one of our clients and as they are specialists in machine guarding here’s a reminder about guarding bandsaws.

Unguarded bandsaws can allow hands and fingers to come into contact with the blade. Lack of guarding also allows workers’ clothing to become entangled in the exposed bandsaw wheels. If a blade is dull or has teeth missing, the material being cut can judder or kick back. These risks can result in serious injuries, including amputations and lacerations.

What is a solution to the problem?

Simple really, bandsaws must be guarded. It must prevent access to the bandsaw blade, while allowing the worker to see the material being cut. If necessary, a push stick can be used to guide the work piece through the process, allowing the worker to keep their fingers and hands clear of the blade. The following guards are the most effective to reduce or eliminate the risk of injury:

1. Interlocked guards – Interlocked wheel guards prevent removal or opening of the guards while the bandsaw is operating. This will immediately cut power to the machine.

2. Fitted guards – Install a height-adjustable guard over the exposed section of blade on the bandsaw. Position the guard just above the height of the material the blade is cutting. Make sure the guard is adjustable to allow for cutting materials of varying thickness.

3. Use the bandsaw brake pedal to stop the cutting blade before any adjustment of the blade or cutting new material.

Keep bandsaw blades well-maintained and sharp. Vibration-free equipment will enable better and faster cuts and improve blade life. Wear patterns on the blade can indicate the band wheels need to be adjusted or the blade guide is misaligned or worn and needs to be replaced.

OHS Tip Make sure you train your workers to use the machine and do refresher training – use a work method statement and adjust to suit your specific operations. Record the training in your OHS employee training register and schedule regular maintenance and inspections and  finally document the testing of interlocked guarding by a competent person such as an electrician.

 Manually lifting the tyre onto the tyre changing machine may involve high force to lift heavy wheels or tyres. It also involves bending, reaching and twisting. This in turn can cause musculoskeletal injuries to the shoulder, lower back, wrist and knees.  The larger the tyre the and heavier the weight the more the risk increases.

OHS reminder Have you conducted a manual handling risk assessment of this job task recently?

Solution
Reduce the risk of musculoskeletal injuries by using an automated system with an integrated fitting device for tyre changing. If this is not practicable, use mechanical aids to handle tyres and wheels.

OHS Tip Make sure you train your workers in the safe use of lifting equipment and do refresher training regularly. Use the OHS training calendar of activities. Record the training in your OHS employee training register Schedule regular maintenance and inspections

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In this day of “who can I sue, I stubbed my toe” I was wondering how many entertainment venues supply clients with risk assessment documentation to fill out before they can hire a venue?   If you are a venue, do you use generic forms or are they developed with the client hiring the venue?  A risk assessment for a staging a play may not be the same as an 18^th birthday party!

Do you go through evacuation procedures with clients? Do you check that the client has an approved first aid kit or a workplace health and safety policy?  Do you identify the person in charge of workplace health and safety?

This does not mean that the venue can get away with doing nothing. The venue must comply with occupational health and safety legislation to ensure the safety of clients at the venue. The venue has the same duty of care to its workers and the client that hires the venue.  How many venues are pro-active in conducting regular risk assessments? I suspect that many (particularly smaller venues) may well be lacking.  

Think about this - we have been doing risk assessment all our lives. When you cross the road, you make a risk assessment.  When you drive your car, you make judgement calls all the time – is it safe to pass, can I enter the roundabout safely – a venue risk assessment is simply another type.

Venues need to make sure that client events run smoothly and with a minimum of risk to venue workers and to people attending the client’s event. Using a risk assessment developed with the client specifically for the type of event becomes an important part of the risk management process to make sure that there are effective and appropriate risk controls in place for the client’s event.

Eliminating all risks in entertainment venues is extremely difficult – how do you fancy a stage that is level with the audience to eliminate the risk of the cast falling.  Consider performers not being about to wear stage make-up because it can cause skin rashes.  Then there’s the bright lights shining in performers’ eyes – sorry can’t have that – it might cause headaches or fits. Eliminating all the risks might mean closing all entertainment venues, but we don’t want to stop events, we simply want them to be safe.

Venues must have written emergency procedures and these must be discussed with the client.  Many hundreds of people have died in venue fires and accidents because either an emergency plan was not in place or it was ignored by the client.  Remember also that the client has the same duty of care to its customers as the venue has to the client.

Now if a client’s customer has an accident at their event, who is to be notified? if the accident is due to a fault by the venue, the venue has to be notified as soon as practical, but if the accident is the fault of the client, who do they notify besides their insurance company?

Do they need to tell the venue that an incident has happened that is not the fault of the venue?  Covering all the bases, the venue should have a form and so should the client.  Remember that documentation can save all sorts of wrangling if a legal stoush takes place. Both the client and the venue should report any accidents or incidents to their insurer.  If a serious incident or accident, this must be reported to the relevant authority.

Guest post by Jennifer Long owner of Visual Ergonomics is an occupational optometry specialist and a certified professional ergonomist. She has completed a Bachelor of Optometry and a Master of Safety Science. By combining her academic background with practical optometry and ergonomics experience, Jennifer offers a holistic approach to solving vision problems in the workplace. She is typically asked to provide consultancy services investigating visual comfort and visual demands in a variety of work environments

The number and variety of fonts we have at our fingertips is immense. Are some fonts easier to read than others? How can we improve the readability of fonts on computer displays?

Size and contrast

Small fonts on computer displays can reduce mouse scrolling but when we read small size font we are more likely to sit closer to displays. This can cause postural and physical discomfort and has also been linked to visual discomfort and decreased productivity. Older workers and those with reduced (or low) vision may also be disadvantaged by small font sizes. 

Sometimes font size cannot be altered. If this is the case, then readability can be improved by increasing the contrast between the font and the background, for example, black on white will be more legible than black on grey. If the display colours cannot be changed, increasing the size of the font can compensate for decreased contrast.

Colour

There are no recommendations for the ultimate colour combination for ease and comfort of reading— colour choice primarily comes down to personal preference and comfort. Nevertheless, some colour combinations are best avoided. For example:

Red/green and red/blue are difficult for our eyes to focus on simultaneously (this is called “chromostereopsis”).

Grey/pink, red/black and brown/green may be difficult to distinguish for the 8% of males and 0.5% females who have a colour vision deficiency.

SERIF or SAN-SERIF 

Serif fonts (fonts with ornaments on the end of strokes, eg Times New Roman) were advocated in the 1960s scientific literature as it was thought that the serifs increased the legibility of individual letters. More recent studies have shown that the uncluttered letter structure of san-serif fonts (non-ornamental fonts e.g. Arial) are easier to read and subjectively preferred when the font size is small. Reading performance as measured by the ability to search and retrieve information within documents appears to be unaffected by the presence or absence of serifs.

UPPERCASE or lower case

Reading combines being able to see detail (ie that the font is large enough to be legible) and recognising the shape of the word.  While upper case font subtends a larger visual angle and is advantageous when reading small font, lower case assists with word recognition. Studies have shown for reasonable size fonts, lower case is just as legible as upper case font.

Contact details for Jennifer Long
jlong@visualergonomics.com.au
www.visualergonomics.com.au
Address: PO Box 645 • Katoomba NSW 2780 • AUSTRALIA
Telephone: +61 2 4782  3472

Workplace health and safety differs from many other areas of management that you measure in your business. Why?  Because when you put in place a marketing strategy, you can measure the outcome of that strategy.  When you put in place a workplace health and safety system the measurement is an absence of an outcome (eg injuries or ill health) rather than a presence of an accident or incident.

A low accident or ill-health rate, even over a period of years, is no guarantee that your risks are being controlled and will not lead to accidents in the future.

This is particularly true where there is a low probability of injuries. Unfortunately, historical records can be a misleading measurement of work health and safety performance.  This is because records kept are often haphazard, are incomplete and are not regularly recorded.

What you do need is “a complete jigsaw”, one that you can use to measure activities over a wide range of workplace health and safety activities, consistently, effectively and most importantly, one that is easy to use.

Your information needs - internal

You need information and measurements in your workplace for people who have specific responsibilities for workplace health and safety.

This includes directors, senior managers, line managers, supervisors, health and safety professionals and employees/safety representatives. They each need information which is appropriate for their position and the responsibilities they have for workplace health and safety.

What this means is a complete set of the four “P’s” policies, procedures, processes and props.  What I regularly see in many organisations is a written policy, an attempt at written procedures, a few props but very little in the way of systematic and integrated processes.

Your information needs - external

Although the main focus for the measurement of workplace health and safety is often to show your legislative compliance, there is an increasing need to demonstrate that you have risk controls in place, that they operate consistently and effectively. The people are asking for this type of information includes external stakeholders ie regulators, suppliers, principal contractors, members of the public, shareholders, etc

Therefore the meaning of workplace health and safety management systems is:

A set of plans, procedures and processes to systematically manage health and safety in the workplace and a committed employer which provides:

• A healthy and safe workplace that applies equally to employees and others in the workplace that works to prevent and/or reduce any incidents of inury.
  
• Identification of workplace risks and hazards; assessments of those hazards and controls put in place to manage the risks.
• Involvement in health and safety matters by senior management, supervisors and employees as well as workplace representatives/committee members.
• Provision of information and training for employees at all levels so they can work safely.
• A monitor, review and evaluation process to track process.

Now if that’s what you’ve got – that’s great, but if you think that maybe there is a better way of doing things, eg something that is simpler, easier, quicker and with less resources, then it’s time to review what you have and do something about it.

So when you’re ready to take the next step and you want to stop worrying that your workplace health and safety system is effective, it’s time to look “what not to do”

How you can avoid buying a “lemon”

1. Stay away from any system that does not listen to your needs and respond to your requests to improve the system.  If you have no input to the system, how will it meet your changing needs?
2.  Discard those systems that do not provide a step by step guide.  If a system only gives you what to do – well, you can get that from the ACT’s, Regulations and Codes of Practice, what you’ll still be missing is the HOW to do it.  Make sure it includes; procedures, processes and props as well as supporting information.
3. Steer clear of any system that is not an “evolving” system.  Workplace health and safety management is a dynamic area and what worked in 2004 will not work now.
4. Reject any system that is purely a database of numbers and a gatherer of statistics.  Whilst these can be useful they do not in themselves provide the tools to manage the processes required.
5. Ignore any system that does not cover the six key elements of management of health and safety
6.  Avoid any system that doesn’t provide processes for the hard topics, eg bullying and harassment, drug and alcohol management plans, including “how” to do it. 
7. Turn away from any system that talks the language of “should” “would” “could” – it’s both old-fashioned and opens the door for nothing to happen. In the same way that no system is perfect, be wary of those that claim to be.  Perfect one day – out of date the next!
8. Reject any system that is mainly focused on the legislative regulations.  Whilst these change regularly and have to be accommodated, any system that is a regurgitation of the legislation will not give you the “how to do it”
9. Eliminate the easy way out in working with any health and safety management system that is in hard copy format only.  They’ll be the least complete and hardest to update – after all this is 2010 – enough said!
10.  Walk away from any system that is not cost effective and cannot accommodate a range of business activities, eg office, warehouse, manufacturing, without expensive and time consuming customisation.

Now you know the pitfalls, it’s time to find out what you do need.  Call us on +61 02 4735 2186 to discuss your needs.

Guest post by Jennifer Long Visual Ergonomics. Jennifer is an occupational optometry specialist and a certified professional ergonomist. She has completed a Bachelor of Optometry and a Master of Safety Science. By combining her academic background with practical optometry and ergonomics experience, Jennifer offers a holistic approach to solving vision problems in the workplace. She is typically asked to provide consultancy services investigating visual comfort and visual demands in a variety of work environments

Computer Vision Syndrome

Computer vision syndrome is the name given to a collection of vision symptom typically reported by computer users.  These symptoms can be divided into three categories including symptoms associated with the following:

• Ability to see – eg blurry vision, eyestrain
• Visual comfort, eg sore eyes, headaches
• Physical comfort, eg sore neck and shoulders

Why does computer vision syndrome occur?
Using a computer is a visually demanding task.  It requires our eyes to focus precisely, often for long periods of time.  Therefore, small visual problems which might otherwise remain unnoticed may become more obvious when performing computer tasks.  Additionally, we tend to blink less frequently when concentrating on a tasks and this can lead to eye dryness.

Sitting at a computer for extended periods can also lead to muscle soreness in the neck and shoulders.  This occurs when:

• a workstation is incorrectly set up, or
• if inappropriate lenses are worn or
• if an insufficient number of rest breaks are taken

How can computer vision syndrome be managed?
The five key areas of managing this syndrome are as follows:

1. If you have difficulty seeing or your eyes feel uncomfortable, make an appointment to have an eye examination.  No referral is necessary in Australia to see an optometrist or if needed with an ophthalmologist (you’ll need a referral from an optometrist or from your doctor for this)
2. Before you have the eye examination, measure the distance that you sit from your computer monitor and the height of your computer relative to your eyes.  Take this information with you when you have your eyes examined, so that if spectacles are prescribed, they will be correctly focused for the work you do.
3. If you wear glasses for reading, consider purchasing different glasses exclusively for computer work (eg extended focus progressives, also known as “computer multifocals”) rather than making do with regular progressive (multifocal) glasses or bifocals.  This will help you maintain a more comfortable neck and back posture when working.
4. Set up your workstation correctly so that you can read your computer display easily. It is also a good idea to regularly clean your computer monitor to remove any fingerprints and dusts.
5. Take regular breaks.  If you have the opportunity, get up and go for a walk during your break as this is beneficial for both your eyes and your body.

Contact details for Jennifer Long
jlong@visualergonomics.com.au
www.visualergonomics.com.au
Address: PO Box 645 • Katoomba NSW 2780 • AUSTRALIA
Telephone: +61 2 4782  3472