Case Study
Work design for three cast iron cleaners in a machine factory

The company is a machine factory for special weaving machines with 240 employees, which also includes a foundry for grey and nodular cast iron. Of the 240 employees, 25 are severely disabled.

1. Severely disabled employee

The man has a hip and knee joint damage, a back disease and a cardiovascular disease. Due to these illnesses, he has limited physical strength. He should avoid heavy lifting and carrying work or frequent bending. His GdB (degree of handicap) is 60. His severely handicapped pass contains the mark G.

The man has been working for his employer for many years as a cast iron cleaner.

2nd disabled employee

The man also has cardiovascular disease. Therefore, he too can no longer perform physically strenuous work. The degree of his disability is 30 (GdB 30).

The man is a trained car mechanic and has been working for his employer as a cast iron cleaner for many years.

3. Severely Disabled Employee

The man has a back illness or damaged disc and an illness of the cardiovascular system. In addition, the disc damage resulted in shoulder-arm syndrome. As in the case of the other two men, this leads to a reduction in his physical capacity. He should therefore avoid activities that require lifting and carrying heavy loads and frequent bending and long periods of standing. The degree of disability is 50 (GdB 50).

The man is a bricklayer by profession and has been working for his employer as a cast plasterer for many years.

The three men work as fettlers on a piecework basis and remove production-related residues (external flash) from castings weighing up to a maximum of 20 kg. The castings are delivered by a colleague with a forklift truck in grid boxes, which are placed on the floor next to the grinding jigs. For deburring, the castings are removed from the grid boxes, deburred on the grinding wheels of the grinding jigs and finally placed back on the floor in grid boxes. Deburring is carried out in a standing working posture, whereby the removal and depositing of the workpieces requires constant bending and tilting movements as well as lifting and carrying work. Due to their disabilities, the three cast cleaners cannot continue to carry out this activity in the long term.

The grinding jigs used to remove the burr have inadequate dust extraction and no sound or noise insulation, so the dust and noise levels are very high.

To reduce the high stresses on the fettlers, the grinding blocks were mounted on height-adjustable workbenches or work tables, lifting and tilting tables were installed and standing aids were provided. The redesign of the workplaces enables the complete further processing or the complete cleaning of the castings - the range of tasks of the fettlers is thus extended.
After grinding off the outer burr on the grinding stands, the further operations (chiselling off the inner burr, removal of surface defects, etc.) are carried out by the fettlers directly at the workbenches at a working height that is optimal for them. The various work sequences, in conjunction with a standing aid, enable a changing body posture so that a one-sided strain caused by a purely monotonous activity in a standing working posture is avoided. By providing lifting and tilting devices, the grid boxes for removing and depositing the castings can be brought into an ergonomic position, so that increased strain due to lifting as well as carrying work and forced postures (bending and stooping) no longer occur.

The new grinding blocks are soundproofed and equipped with effective dust extraction systems. Exposure to noise or dust is thus avoided.

55% of the work design was funded by the Integration Office.