Ergonomic Tool Balancers Provide Easy Handling and Safety Benefits | Mountz

Ergonomic Tool Balancers Reduce Safety Risks

Ergonomic tool balancers from Mountz are a great solution for organizations interested in increasing efficiency and decreasing safety risks. In a manufacturing workstation, having a clean, organized and ergonomic work area enhances productivity and improves the assembly time and process. Safety at the workstation is a key aspect that managers need to review on a continuous ongoing basis. Exposure to high forces, awkward postures, lifting, and repetition are everyday activities that an employee can perform at an assembly workstation, leading to potential injuries and an increase in costly compensation claims.

The risk of injury for the assembly operator depends on the duration, frequency, or intensity of exposure to the assembly job function. Assembly operators often spend long periods standing and/or performing repetitive motions and lifting throughout their shift. Ergonomic tool balancers and other similar solutions can reduce the physical impact of these daily industrial tasks. Assembling mechanical and electronic components demands efficiency, space, productivity, and ergonomics.

Manufacturing managers need to get the tools necessary to create a cost-effective, comprehensive, and strategic solution to ensure the workplace functions with health and safety as a critical priority. Torque arms are one solution available for the assembly area. Another solution is ergonomic tool balancers, which provide easy handling for operators that work with tools for long, continuous hours. The ergonomic balancers allow tools to be positioned over the workstation for comfortable operation and can be used with pneumatic, electric, hydraulic, or other tools.

Best practices for improving the safety at an assembly workstation:

• Make ergonomic efforts a priority.
• Conduct routine meetings between employees and supervisors to discuss ergonomic concerns and solutions.
• Set ergonomic goals and track results.
• Share results with the employees.
• Train employees to be more aware of ergonomic risk factors.
• Bring in outside experts for consultations, if needed.
• Promote employee involvement with the efforts to improve workplace conditions.

 An ergonomic tool balancer helps improve safety and protects an assembly tool from accidental damage, like being knocked off a workbench. Damaged assembly tools increase costs and cause production delays. Once a tool is dropped on the floor, it’s recommended to pull it from the production line and send it in for a service evaluation. The impact may damage internal parts, which may be unseen from the exterior viewpoint. Also, the torque setting must be evaluated, as the tool may need to be recalibrated.

Mountz offers an assortment of ergonomic tool balancers for various applications:

Workspace Planning Considerations

When planning a production area, it pays dividends for manufacturers in the long term to plan the ergonomics of the operation and consult a health and safety inspector or ergonomic manager. Ensuring both the workplace and the assembly operation are compatible with the majority of operators handling the assembly tools reduces future costs arising from work-related health disorders among operators, and expenses arising from poor product quality.

The above post was provided by Mountz, the torque specialists and our featured manufacturer this month. From the development of the first electronic torque calibrator that launched a new product category, Mountz has always challenged the status quo and pursued new ideas to help customers optimize precision, accuracy and quality across their manufacturing processes.