Case Study Workplace design for two kitchen assistants

The employer is a kindergarten.

Disability and functional limitation of the female employees:
One of the women has a spinal disease and a reduction in lung function. Her colleague has osteoarthritis in her knee joints. Due to their disabilities, the women have only a low physical capacity and should therefore not be permanently employed for the manual transport of loads. Both women have a GdB (degree of disability) of 50.

The women work as kitchen assistants in the kindergarten.

The kitchen helpers are responsible for providing 219 children with food. This includes, besides serving food for breakfast and lunch, ordering food and washing dishes. Breakfast and lunch are prepared in the kitchen and then manually transported to the food serving area. After the respective meals, the used cutlery and dishes are then carried by the kitchen assistants to the sink and washed by hand in a standing as well as bent body posture. The frequent manual transport and the permanent use of the long standing posture with bent upper body cause considerable strain on the back and knees of the two severely disabled kitchen assistants.

In order to reduce the high physical strain, a dishwasher and two table trolleys were purchased, thus eliminating the bent body posture required for dishwashing and the manual carrying of meals and dishes as well as cutlery. Both employees can now carry out their tasks with only minimal physical strain.

hand-guided industrial transport equipment (table trolleys)