Management Audit

Report No. 2000-07

Nancy McDaniel, Management Auditor
Paul Walker, CPA, CIA, Financial Auditor

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Background 
General Conclusions
Major Findings:

Finding 1 -The response of the Solid Waste Division and Safety and Claims Management to the series of repetitive motion injuries among the scale operators was not timely or preventative.
Finding 2 - The Solid Waste Division did not have an effective process for prioritizing work order requests from employees and as a result, took an unacceptably long time to act on simple requests that involved ergonomic and safety issues.
Finding 3 - Repetitive reaching out the doors or windows for customer transactions may be a potential ergonomic issue.
Finding 4 - Solid Waste Division management included the scale operators in designing new scale houses.

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND

Repetitive motion injuries develop gradually as a result of repeated microtrauma to soft tissue such as tendons, ligaments, and nerves. Many jobs associated with these injuries involve performing simple repetitive tasks such as gripping or pushing. Major ergonomic risk factors include force, repetition, awkward postures, and insufficient recovery time.

The Solid Waste Division operates scale houses at the Cedar Hills landfill and nine transfer stations, which are staffed by 37 scale operators. From 1993 through 1998, 16 scale operators reported 23 repetitive motion injuries. As of May of this year, $254,533 had been paid out on these injuries for medical bills and time lost from work. The main factor listed for the injuries was opening and closing the sliding glass doors or windows used for customer access. In 1998 the Solid Waste Division replaced the manual sliding doors with push-button automatic doors. Since then, only one repetitive motion injury has been reported.

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

MAJOR FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Finding 1.  The response of the Solid Waste Division and Safety and Claims Management to the series of repetitive motion injuries among the scale operators was not timely or preventative.

After the first two repetitive motion injuries were reported, Safety and Claims conducted ergonomic training for the scale operators, but it was not until two more injuries were reported that Safety and Claims evaluated the ergonomic risk factors at the scale houses. When they measured the amount of force needed to pull open the sliding glass doors, there were significant discrepancies between the measurements recorded by different staff. Although some measurements indicated pull forces that were near the limit of acceptable force for an average woman (84 percent of the scale operators are women), Safety and Claims did not follow up on the discrepancies to determine if the forces were indeed near the limit of acceptable force.

Safety and Claims recommended some physical changes to the scale houses, which are generally preferred over administrative controls (e.g., employee training) for ergonomic hazards. However, most of their recommendations emphasized employee training. Moreover, Solid Waste delayed or did not act on the physical changes that Safety and Claims did recommend. Solid Waste delayed installing large bar handles on the sliding glass doors and never implemented other recommendations that would have reduced the weight of the doors, such as replacing double panes with single pane glass. Safety and Claims continued to recommend training until 1998, when automated doors were installed at the direction of the County Executive.

Since then, only one repetitive motion injury has been reported by the scale operators (see Finding 4). The cost of the doors averaged just over $4,100 per site. Based on the number and cost of the repetitive motion claims, the doors paid for themselves in the first four and a half months they were installed.

The audit recommended that Safety and Claims develop a proactive approach for responding to clusters of repetitive motion injuries, including use of a case management system.

Finding 3.   Repetitive reaching out the doors or windows for customer transactions may be a potential ergonomic issue.

The scale operators work shifts of seven consecutive ten-hour days followed by seven days off. According to ergonomists interviewed by audit staff, this schedule did not allow sufficient recovery time, and even a week off would not be enough to recover from the microtraumas sustained over a week. Most scale operators, however, saw the work schedule as a major benefit of the job and did not want it changed.

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