Plant floors and assembly lines can be dangerous. There’s no denying that. Working with tools, whether big or small, comes with its own set of risks. At Atlas Copco, safety is not something we take lightly.
The notion that powerful assembly tools have to be big, heavy, and noisy, with very high vibration levels, has been deeply rooted in the minds of many power tool users. A tool without any vibrations can’t be powerful, right? Well, at the beginning of the modern power tool era, that was true in many cases. The available technology, combined with a lack of awareness regarding the ergonomic impact of daily use, did not emphasize the need for ergonomic assembly tools. Today, we know much more about the negative health effects of working with heavy, noisy tools with high vibrational outputs. This has resulted in significant technological advancements, bringing about increased power while minimizing weight, noise, and vibrations.
Since we started our ergonomics program for industrial power tools in 1958, we’ve considered ergonomics to be of the utmost importance when working with and using machinery in a production environment. To us, ergonomics is the commitment we make to keeping operators safe and comfortable by avoiding dangerous exposure to unnecessary physical strain and vibrations as they use our tools and solutions. We develop every piece of machinery or tool with the comfort and safety of operators in mind.
Why you should care about ergonomics in the workplace
It’s important to understand why ergonomics is the most valuable resource your plant has. It isn’t productivity or quality, and that’s because those resources go hand in hand with strong workplace ergonomics. When safety is compromised and accidents or injuries become inevitable, productivity and quality on your assembly line suffer. Issues arising from poor ergonomics are costly, and not only because of the rehabilitation process of affected operators; studies indicate that the cost of lost productivity and quality after an accident can be much greater than the cost of rehabilitation. At Atlas Copco, every single product of ours must pass an extensive ergonomic test before its launch.
How tool design improves ergonomics
Atlas Copco produces thousands of different tools to support many different industries. For us, strong ergonomics means that no matter which tool is being used, its design will ensure operator safety. Of all the tools in our catalog, every single one was developed with strong ergonomics as a top priority. Atlas Copco’s fixtured workstation solutions, for instance, encompass a broad range of products that were developed specifically for operator ease and comfort.
First, we have the HTS Reaction Suspension System, which is a suspended torque reaction. Reducing worker fatigue and increasing productivity on the assembly line, its low handling forces and lightweight design ensure smooth movement, improving workplace ergonomics.
Our AXR Articulated Arm is another example of a solution built with solid ergonomics. Atlas Copco’s AXR Articulated Arm is an inverted configuration designed for overhead rail mounting. The AXR Articulated Arm reacts to the torque generated by a tool, eliminating impact on the operator. Like the HTS, AXR reduces operator fatigue with low handling forces and handle mounting, which provides an ergonomic operator handling point for moving the arm up and down the line of travel.
Vibration in the workplace
Risks associated with long-term exposure to vibrating tools on the plant floor can be avoided by strong workplace ergonomics. In handheld tools especially, poor ergonomic design that leaves tool vibration uncontrolled can lead to damaged nerve cells, vascular injury, and a number of musculoskeletal disorders. In most cases, issues like nerve cell damage inevitably lead to sensitivity loss in the fingers, or perhaps to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, which has similar symptoms. That’s why our tools have been developed to reduce vibration exposure for engineers by controlling the magnitude of the vibration forces and isolating the vibrations from the gripped surfaces.
One method of reducing vibrations is by increasing the power of the tool. Tools with higher power can complete tasks faster than those with lower power, resulting in a shorter duration of exposure to noise, vibrations, weight, and other forces (such as feed force). Essentially, doubling the power and cutting the time needed to complete a task in half.
The introduction of turbine motors in grinders significantly increased their power, while a clever design and the use of light-alloy materials reduced their weight. Today, our small turbine grinders have the same power as our vertical grinders from the 1970s but with less than half of the weight and significantly lower noise levels.
Like many handheld tools, industrial grinders can cause nerve damage and musculoskeletal disorders if vibration levels are not addressed. That’s why our industrial grinders are also typically built with autobalancers and scatter-dampening features, which increase the life of burrs and reduce the risk of vibration-related injuries. Our LSF39 Die Grinder is one such example, developed with scatter-dampening and a built-in silencer for reducing noise levels.
With all this in mind, it’s important to note that despite the measures we take to keep engineers safe from vibration damage, our tools are still as powerful as they can be because we know that safety and power in the workplace go hand in hand with each other.
How do we measure and declare the vibration values of our tools
Tools and power
For many decades, percussive tools have been known for high vibration levels. The power of the tool has directly been associated with its weight, where a heavier tool signifies more power. When vibration exposure became a hot topic in the 1970s, a lot of effort was put into reducing the vibration levels of our percussive tools. This led to a breakthrough in different vibration-reducing technologies. Not only were we able to reduce the vibration levels significantly, but we were also able to reduce the weight of the tools by sometimes as much as 50% while keeping the power.
Today, all of our vibration-damped percussive tools are lighter and have lower vibration levels compared to conventional hammers with similar power. When searching for ergonomic assembly tools, it's important to consider the power. The power is the only factor that can reduce the exposure time of all ergonomic factors at the same time!
Our commitment to ergonomics
Our expert team of tooling engineers and developers here at Atlas Copco is dedicated to keeping our customers safe and happy in the long run. We develop ergonomic assembly tools because we know and understand that productivity and quality lag when engineers are at risk of injury. With tools such as the HTS Reaction Suspension System, the AXR Articulated Arm, and many of our industrial grinders, Atlas Copco remains committed to ergonomics, just as it was when our ergonomic program was established in 1958.
To learn more about our ergonomic tools and our commitment to operators, contact Atlas Copco and schedule a demo today.