Mr Michael Hauptmann CSIRO (Comcare)
Category 5: Best individual contribution to workplace health and safety
CSIRO Division of Plant Industry is the largest of CSIRO’s 20 divisions and is responsible for more than 800 staff and visiting scientists across 10 sites around Australia. Overuse injuries are the top priority for the division, especially as tasks potentially leading to these types of injuries are highly frequent (in particular the multiple opening and closing of Eppendorf tubes).
Michael Hauptman is an engineer with the Black Mountain Engineering Workshop. He addressed the opening/closing ergonomic risk by designing two new tools:
- a specialised pliar which pops the seals on tube lids across a row of tubes in a rack, and
- a press which closes several rows of tube lids in one quick operation.
Michael was nominated for his efforts in the design and development of both of these tools. Staff interviews have confirmed that shoulder stress from closing operations was dramatically reduced, and that repetitions of wrist/forearm rotations in manual tube opening had been replaced by a single-plane use of force reliant on larger and more resilient muscle groups. Michael’s new tools give staff a sense of control over their work and their morale has visibly improved as a result.
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Page last updated: 03/05/2007