Reducing injuries at work


Costs due to sickness and absenteeism Today, over 30% of all cases of unfitness for work are caused by muscular and skeletal injuries. Of these, 60% are associated with the specific group of dorsopaths (back suffering). On average, the duration of illness causing unfitness for work due to back complaints is 21 days. The costs of absenteeism per working day (inclusive of additional costs such as lowered productivity, losses in quality, etc.) is £266. The average annual cost per worker absent due to sickness is £5,600. On average, 7% of a company's staff are absent due to sickness at any one time. For a company with 200 staff, approximately 5,110 working days are lost annually due to unfitness, of which about 20% are due to dorsopath sufferers. This is equivalent to about 790 working days each year lost due to absense. Annual costs of personnel, absent because of back complaints are £210,666. Annual savings made by reducing the incidence of illness to 5% by introduction of suitable measures, e.g., application of lifting aids are £300,000 - approx.
	Manual handling The Lift & Drive prevents back and intervertebral disc problems: the mobile lifts can be individually put together according to their use, and can move goods of up to 225kg. The lifts are light and are not dependent on mains electricity, so they hav their place in industry, commerce, trade offices, administration and hospitals - in fact wherever people have to manually lift and transport parcels, equipment and goods. Back and spinal problems are more frequently becoming the reason for loss of working days and job related illness. According to the latest surveys, they are the second most frequent reason for absence from work. Employees most at risk are those who, for example, regularly weights of between 10 and 25kg, or those who have worked in situations that require a lot of bending forward forwards for many years. In this context, work involving the removal or sorting of goods out of or into different height levels also puts on strain. This puts the spine under a lot more stress than previously assumed. In addition when frequent lifting is required of employees, their rate of work slows down, or two people have to do the work. This is where responsible and entrepreneurial action is brought into play to avoid constant, unbalanced burdening of employees' by suitable equipping their places of work. In this situation, the Lift & Drive helps to clearly reduce health risks. The Lift & Drive can be used wherever parels, equipment or goods have to be manually lifted and transported. Lift & Drive undertakes these physically straining tasks and lifts goods to the right height. The lift systems allows processes to be speeded up. At the same time, ilness is reduced because the affected employees are put under less physical strain. As a rule, better working conditions lead to higher motivation too, which is economically sensible and worth striving for.

A third of all illness-caused temporary disabilities is due to back aches. In many cases this is due to the heavy physical strain of lifting and carrying goods. Many times comparatively light weights are handled - but this can amount to more than one ton in the course of a working day. For this reason the Lift & Drive investment is quickly amoritised by considerable decrease of expenditures for absent staff.	With respect to the ergonomic needs optimally co-ordinated devices facilitate work and motivate staff. So what has been handled by two persons so far can be handled by one person now (just move your mouse over to the picture to see what we mean!)

Frequent lifting and carrying of goods during a working day leads to a decrease in rate of work. When using the Lift & Drive it remains at the same level. A saving of 10 seconds every 10 minutes amounts to one working week per year. Efficiently co-ordinated devices and sequences of operation increase the sequence of production. Lift & Drive is a technical aid in the sense of the regulation for load handling that supports the fulfillment of the industrial safety requirements.