04/19/23: Job Rotation: Considerations for Preventing Musculoskeletal Disorders

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Job Rotation: Considerations for Preventing Musculoskeletal Disorders

About the webinar:

Job rotation is an administrative control strategy that involves alternating work tasks between employees. It is often associated with various benefits, including improved cross-training, reduced monotony, and increased exposure variability that may reduce the risk of overloading musculoskeletal tissues. However, research examining job rotation as a preventative measure for musculoskeletal disorders have had mixed results. In this webinar, Drs. Schall and Vinel will describe a novel optimization framework evaluating the effectiveness of job rotation when considering the fatigue failure model of musculoskeletal disorder development. The results, based on two datasets of industrial work, indicate that the effect of job rotation is highly dependent on the composition of the job pool. Implications of their results for job rotation scheduling and worker health and well-being will be discussed.

Learning Objectives

At the completion of this activity, the learner will be able to:

Review the advantages and disadvantages of job rotation based on recent studies
Describe a novel optimization framework evaluating the effectiveness of job rotation
Discuss the implications of job rotation on worker health and well-being

Speaker: Mark C. Schall, Jr., PhD, CPE

Mark C. Schall, Jr. is the Daniel F. and Josephine Breeden Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering at Auburn University. Dr. Schall is a Certified Professional Ergonomist and directs the Center for Occupational Safety, Ergonomics, and Injury Prevention at Auburn University. His research focuses on developing direct measurement techniques to enhance objective exposure assessment in ergonomics and applying those techniques to improve working people's health, safety, and well-being through improved decision-making. Ongoing or recently completed extramurally funded research projects include a field-based study exploring the use of wearable inertial sensors in the manufacturing industry and a laboratory-based investigation of novel surface electromyography and inertial sensor signal processing techniques to classify and predict worker kinematics.

Speaker: Alexander Vinel, PhD

Alexander Vinel has is an associate professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Auburn University. He holds a Ph.D. degree in industrial engineering from the University of Iowa. His research interests are focused on stochastic operations research, including optimization methods, decision making under uncertainty and data analytics, such as methodologies for measuring and optimizing risk and approaches to data-driven optimization. Specific application areas of interest include transportation systems, additive manufacturing, renewable energy planning, and occupational safety engineering. Dr. Vinel’s research has been funded by National Science Foundation (NSF), Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC). Dr. Vinel serves as an Area Editor for peer-reviewed academic journal Computers and Operations Research. He was selected as the Outstanding Faculty Member in the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department at Auburn in 2016, and is a co-author on the publication selected for the Best Paper Award for the journal Ergonomics in 2021.

ACCREDITATION

The Center for Occupational and Environmental Health designates this activity for a maximum of 1.0 Contact Hour. Participants should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation.

Certificates of Completion

Certificates of Completion will be available to webinar participants who are present for the complete, live webinar, and logged in with their registered email address. Call-in attendees are not eligible for certificates at this time - Please download the Zoom app to log in via email on your smartphone whenever possible.

In order to receive your Certificate of Completion, qualified learners must complete the post-webinar evaluation within 7 days of the webinar. A link to the evaluation will be emailed to qualified learners 24 hours after the webinar via no-reply@zoom.us. Qualified learners who submit their evaluation will receive a Certificate of Completion via email, and can also print/save the certificate from their browser after submitting their evaluation.

If you're not able to attend the live presentation, no problem! We record most presentations and will host them on our website provided we have permission to do so. Presentation recordings are not eligible for Certificates of Completion.

About Deep South Center for Occupational Health & Safety:

The Deep South ERC is the only NIOSH ERC in our region and is a critical resource to business, labor and industry in preventing work-related injury and illness. The Center provides strong academic programs of study for its students, which includes interdisciplinary and field work experiences. ERC graduates have rewarding and challenging careers in businesses, federal agencies, academia and industries. Through the ERC, information is shared on emerging occupational health and safety issues to other educational institutions, public agencies, businesses, workers, minorities, youths and non-profits. The faculty of the Deep South ERC has varied research interests from long haul truck driver safety to respirator fit testing.

ACCESSIBILITY:

If you require an accommodation for effective communication (ASL interpreting/CART captioning, alternative media formats, etc.) to fully participate in this event, please contact Michelle Meyer at (510) 642-8365 or mmeyer@berkeley.edu(link sends e-mail) with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7-10 days in advance of the event.