Case Study
Workplace design for two production assistants in a metal goods factory

The company is a metal goods factory.

The two men have physical impairments due to a leg disability, knee joint disease and cardiovascular disease. Due to their disabilities, they should not be used to manually transport loads to perform their jobs. One man has a GdB (degree of disability) of 70 and the other 40.

The two men work in production on polishing machines and in the area of internal material transport. There they insert workpieces from above into two polishing machines. The polished workpieces then fall into storage boxes placed on the floor. The full storage boxes, which weighed up to 40 kilograms, were then pulled manually by them across the floor to the degreasing and deburring machines using hooks. In the long run, the strain of carrying out their work was too high due to their disabilities, so that adaptations had to be made.
A monorail overhead conveyor system for transporting materials was therefore installed on the ceiling of the factory hall and the goods entrance and exit. The 20-meter-long overhead monorail system was installed in such a way that all machines in the factory hall can be passed over. The use of the overhead monorail system eliminates the need to manually transport the storage boxes, which weigh up to 40 kilograms. This avoids high physical strain for the two employees.
Two new machines for polishing the workpieces were also purchased. Like the old ones, the new polishing machines are loaded or filled with workpieces from above, but they discharge the polished workpieces sideways. Both machines were placed on pedestals so that the polished workpieces can fall sideways from the machine into the storage boxes at gripping height. The storage crates are thus at an ergonomically favorable working height for transporting them to the goods issue area with the gripping device or crate gripper of the overhead conveyor system. The company needed an additional 100 storage bins so that all the material could also be transported using the overhead conveyor system and the box gripper.

The design suitable for disabled people was promoted by the Integration or Inclusion Office. Advice was provided by the Technical Advisory Service of the Integration or Inclusion Office.