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How you set up your shop, your working procedures and workspace can affect
your safety, comfort, stress level and efficiency of making. If your shop
is well planned you will be more efficient. The more efficient you are,
the faster you work and the more creative time you will have available
to you. It pays to spend some time on organization. The more you think
about, and plan your workspace and what you do in it the easier life as
a craftsperson will be for you. And it's safer, too. Many accidents happen
because equipment is badly positioned, or there is clutter. Avoid making
piles or having things too messy. Be smart in how you set up your space.
It is important to set aside the time to describe and analyze what you
do in your craft so that you can see better how to improve things.
Draw a map of your workplace. It helps to make a plan of your workshop, like an architect's view of
the layout of a floor in a house. Make it fairly big to have room to make
notes on it. Draw in walls for the rooms and list on it the various jobs
that are done in different areas. Label major equipment on the drawing.
Draw in arrows to show how workpieces flow through the shop from entry
to exit. Do some cross-hatching on it to identify areas where hazardous
materials are stored and use some different kind of marking to show where
hazardous noise is encountered. Indicate with X's where ergonomic dangers
may be present. Mark where space usage and access issues are present.
Then add to your blossoming drawing little triangles to indicate where
there are airborne hazards. Finally, make little colored stick-on dots
where accidents or near accidents have occurred in the past, this will
show where accident clusters happen. Accidents happen less often if things
are tidy and organized.
Now look at your plan and see if you can rearrange jobs or equipment
to make things a little safer, more efficient, productive and easier to
live in. Think about access, ergonomics, confined spaces, traffic flow,
fire dangers, extinguisher placement and all the issues above (Labour
Canada 13). Segregate different jobs, that is have specific workstations
for different jobs. Chemical use, for instance should be done in a fume
hood. Remember proper ventilation in your shop is vital. It helps to have
low isolating walls around workstations to keep processes separate and
hence more controllable in safety terms. It is a good idea to have your
office in a separate room than your workshop. This is to lower your overall
exposure to your workshop materials and processes. I also knew someone
who fried their computer mother board in a combined office/workshop space
because enough minuscule metallic dust entered it that it short circuited.
The work station should be carefully designed to be efficient, allow
ease of working and be safe. Tools get positioned around the work station
for maximum accessibility in order of frequency of use. Have tools in
rotating bins, or blocks with tools sprouting from them that move about
the work surface, use shelves, open compartments and tool boards. Easy
reach and avoidance of twisting motions to reach tools are important considerations.
An example of the effects of a workstation alteration is switching to
a telephone headset. Users don't hurt their necks or jaws and are up to
48% more efficient at getting work done.
Look for role models that you can learn from, look for who has to work
smoothly, accurately, safely and rapidly. How about doctors, surgeons,
dentists, tatooists? All the tools laid out. Every one in its place. As
one gets older, phrases like "put things back where you found them"
begin to make more sense. Just like a chemistry lab, try and have most
table surfaces empty much of the time.
Mark Zirinsky describes a production shop reorganization where their
shop foreman removed all tools and equipment and then reinstalled everything
more intelligently: "The result of this
was that our defect rate decreased from 4% to less than 0.5%, our average
cycle time (to do the manufacturing steps) went from 20 minutes to 8 minutes,
and the assemblers went from a 1/2 hour break in a day to 1.25 hours per
day. Our production went up, costs went down, everyone was more relaxed,
everybody was happy" (Mark Zirinsky, Orchid list, 4/13/97, "Re:
tidy bench").
According to a 1973 ergonomic analysis of a craft factory, workstation
design (easily remedied by more modern readily available alternatives),
and disorganized working areas were a frequent contributor to ergonomic
problems (Grant et al. 93). Talk to an office furniture supplier, doctor,
insurance agent and your OSHA office about ergonomics and your specific
working conditions.
Spend some time analyzing your shop and discuss the results with someone
knowledgeable. You will find you work easier, happier and faster.
Bibliography
- Grant, Katharyn, et al. "Case Studies: Biochemical Hazards in
a Jewelery Manufacturing Facility." Applied Occupational Environmental
Hygiene 8.2 (February 1993): 90-96.
- Labour Canada. Workplace Inspections: Four Steps to Safety and Health:
A Practical Guide to Conducting Effective Workplace Inspections for
Safety and Health . Ottawa: Labour Canada, 1993.
- Zirinsky, Mark. (1997, Apr. 13). Re:
tidy bench. Orchid list
SIDEBAR - Some things to consider Equipment manuals, machine guards, cleaning, maintenance, health and
safety, power needs, fire safety, repair.
Materials MSDS, chemical profiles, storage, waste produced, chemical
changes when worked, specific dangers.
Storage Chemical incompatibility, ergonomics of access, traffic flow,
confined spaces, fire, specific needs of object stored.
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