«The Eaws system was applied for the first time in 2008 by Marchionne’s Fiat in Pomigliano, inserting it into the specialist work contract – Caragnano continues – and transformed the group’s Cinderella plant into an international benchmark for the sector (with peaks of increases of 35% productivity, according to unofficial estimates, ed.). So much so that from there Volkswagen has chosen and applied our standard, among the dozens available on the market “. In Italy there are about thirty companies that today have workstations designed with Eaws, almost all large industries, for about 100 thousand workers involved (out of 600 thousand worldwide).
Eaws, unlike other methodologies, evaluates risk factors all together on a single scale (body positions, forces, manual handling of loads and repetitive movements of upper limbs) and is connected to the predetermined time system MTM, to establish fatigue and therefore work and rest times. All the 54 thousand movements to create a Panda, for example, are monitored and processed by software and there are no more less laborious workstations and therefore conflicts between workers and between the latter and managers. The preliminary results of the study launched two years ago on 1,300 workers at the Melfi plant – explains Lidia Gibaudo, Innovation & Virtual Ergo, FCA Group – which will end in 2020 reveals that the musculoskeletal disorders of the workers are in line with those of white-collar workers , which have no biomechanical load to bear. And Martin Haselhuhm, Industrial Engineering Methode & Ergonomie of Volkswagen says that by redesigning an existing workstation (for the insertion of the rear door) and bringing the height of activity of the hands to the trunk and not above the head, the ergonomic evaluation is passed from criticism (“red” station, 62 points Eaws) to without criticality (“green” station, 25 points Eaws).