A participatory ergonomics approach to redesign work of scaffolders

Reasons for Applying Innovations for Scaffolding Work

“…An evaluation by Kompier, Gründemann, Vink, and Smulders (1996) of ten successful projects aimed at reducing sick absenteeism at work, including the project that is the subject of this study, showed that active involvement of workers during problem analysis and solution finding are important reasons for success. Vink et al (1997), when evaluating the process of the participatory project of this study, indicated that active involvement of scaffolders led to useful innovations for prioritised problems. This agrees with the findings of this study, in which management was convinced of the need for innovations and scaffolders were satisfied with the use of most of them.…”

“…The ultimate goal of the innovations was to reduce physical workload. A previous study showed objectively the effects on the reduction of workload due to improvements (Vink et al, 1997). This study is in step with these objective findings.…”

“…Scaffolding work is physically demanding (Vink, Urlings, & Molen, 1997). In 1996 sick absenteeism of scaffolders was at the level of 8.6%.…”

“…This participatory process is described in detail in Vink et al (1997). For horizontal transport a palletcart (see Figure 1) was developed.…”

“…This evaluation showed that 30-88% (percentage depending on the type of innovations) of the scaffolders were working with the innovations (Vink et al, 1997). Furthermore, the effects of the improvements on physical workload were tested in the evaluation.…”