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Second world largest producer of cut flowers, behind the Netherlands, the market leader. Colombia is among the countries producing flowers that have made the most progress in terms of social and environmental objectives. Floriculture members of Asocolflores continue to advance in this direction with Florverde ®, an independent certification process established in 1996 to provide solutions that would improve the lives of workers in the floriculture industry, preserve and protect the environment and ensure compliance with most stringent production standards.

Its portfolio includes 1,600 varieties of flowers that create opportunities for direct and indirect employment for more than 225,000 Colombians, most of whom are female heads of household "An epidemiological study conducted by the Ministry of Social Protection in 2004 found that Floriculture concentrates alone 9% of all diagnoses of occupational diseases in the country, mostly diseases manifested in the form of carpal tunnel syndrome resulting from the work of flower plant cutting. Moreover, faced with the falling trend of the dollar, the same sector (massively exporting its production, mainly to the U.S. and Europe) has responded by focusing as "principal means of improving productivity by increasing production volumes by seeking maximum performance from the workforce "(Cactus Corporation, 2010). Although this company policy was to be accompanied by the research of work methods that may protect the health of workers, it results in a high biomechanical demand of excessive repetition and angulation movements.

In this economic and social context, the request to Nelcy Aravelo-Pinilla, independent ergonomist at ergoIDEAL (Bogota) the Colombian foundation of ergonomics, by 4 producers and exporters of the Alstroemeria variety (or Peruvian Lily) of a leading economic group of the Colombian floriculture industry has led to formulate a proposal to link the requirements of health, quality and productivity. In collaboration with the occupational health service of this group, "we have established a multidisciplinary and multi-persons collective labor group, composed of the group occupational doctor, quality and technical engineers, and, for each participating company, human and technical resources managers, production and export engineers, voluntary workers and sub-managers. " In the context of multidisciplinary and multi-persons efforts, the approach of ergonomics focusing on the activity appears critical, particularly because it carries a recommendation for action consistent with the most current MSD prevention designs. Indeed, these state that in order to address this issue, it is necessary to take into account, from the organizational dimension, the work system or activity. This is necessary to appreciate the nature of the biomechanical demands on the worker, in a configuration of economic objectives given by the company, whereby the operation of production or service has been conceived, designed and planned. In agreement with the final proposed definition of MSDs by Harichaux (Harichaux et al., 2003), stating that "MSDs correspond to an organizational disease that manifests itself symptomatically among workers," a purpose of the analysis for an ergonomic intervention tends to look out to understand and explain:

• What is the most critical time of the activity of cutting astroemeria,
• What are the dangers that remain potentially the most durable
• What are the strategies and procedures used by workers to alleviate or remove (eg by reducing exposure times) risks.

Those points are to be taken into account from the work logic normally applied by workers and where are involved health, safety, quality and productivity variables. These observable logics or strategies can be expressed in the form of 4 commonly observed trends:

1. Seeking to satisfy the objectives of quality and productivity set by the company, with the big risk to endanger the health and safety (the more frequently encountered situation in the Colombian working population)
2. Subject the outcomes of quality and productivity to the protection of health and safety (including an identifiable strategy with workers close to retirement age)
3. Implement work practices that do not appear favorable in order to meet quality and productivity objectives or to meet those of health and safety (as observed with novice workers in the starting and stabilization of their professional knowledge process, or with workers with proven functional deficiencies)
4. Establish work practices promoting all aspects of quality, productivity, health and safety (the priority situation to identify, analyze and implement in a business).

Implementation of the approach

The intervention took place between the second half of 2006 and 2011. The request came from one of the leaders-owners of the 4 interested companies. Inspired by the philosophy of comparative benchmarking, he asked for a study of the process of ongoing work in each company. The retained purpose was to identify and implement best working practices, to obtain a quality product, in compliance with the required quantities but with all the guarantees of optimal protection of the health of operators ..
The course of the intervention was implemented in three stages. Each one, with the participation of different social actors, appointed in each company by the managers directly responsible for human resources:

1. Diagnostic and ergonomic analysis step: operators, sub-managers, ergonomist.
2. A creative step of proposing solutions to improve the existing situation: operators, ergonomist, maintenance engineer, industrial designer, production manager.
3. Implementation of the proposals made step: operators, sub-managers, ergonomist.

After consolidating the data from the 4 participating companies, "we proceeded to the formulation of ergonomic diagnosis. It takes into account the overall situation of the system formed by the involved companies, that is to say, the various organizational, technological and human components. The field observations have enabled us to observe an excessive angulation of the shoulder and hand, and large and repeated forward inclinations of the spine. In addition to these qualitative observations, let’s add that given the performance levels required by each of the companies under review, a significant excess of the recommended maximum values ​​of repeatability of shoulder motion was routinely observed (number of movements observed between 2 and 3 times the NIOSH standard). The exposure thus identified can be even worse if we add this additional observation that besides the concentration of such movements beyond the permissible limits, they fell outside the accepted safety angle (between 145 ° and 180 °)

Conclusion

Following the conducted intervention, let’s indicate in conclusion that the preparation of Alstroemeria was simplified as a whole: by pulling individually the plants, loading them onto harvest trucks, predetermined movement in planting areas, flowers packaging, and finally waste disposal.

 

1. In terms of the approach, we tried to show that through the ergonomics intervention methodology, it is possible to redefine the business by integrating the dimensions of health, safety, quality and productivity, this mobilizing both multidisciplinary work and a plurality of actors (from the companies ordering the intervention).
2. Lastly, regarding the implementation of proposals made, it is determined that the productivity engineers see the value and therefore understand and accept the approach supported by this work, that health, quality and productivity can be integrated without opposition to satisfactorily carrying out the activity.
3. The participation of sub-managers is possible under the direction of production engineers. Their participation is fundamental to mobilize the workers for implementing changes in the way of working.
4. For the credibility of the workers it is convenient to introduce the explanation of the new method of working with the engineer (reasons for exchange), continues with sub-management (what is the exchange) and finish with the ergonomist (expected results).

KEY STATISTICS IN TERMS OF COLOMBIAN FLOWERS

Source: Asocolflores
Number of certified Florverde flowers shipped in the World in 2009: over 1.3 billion
Total export sales (2009): 1.1 billion USD
Rural Employment (2009): 25% of jobs in rural areas occupied by women in Colombia
Other beneficiaries: more than 1,700 displaced families had the opportunity to rebuild their lives in the Colombian floriculture industry.
http://www.asocolflores.org

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