Fisher Scientific provides hundreds of thousands of products and services to 350,000 research, healthcare, industrial, educational and government clients in 145 countries. The company manufactures and distributes scientific instruments, equipment, supplies, workstations and chemicals used by research laboratories, diagnostic instruments, test materials and related products for clinical laboratories, and teaching aids for science education. Don Herbst serves as the company’s corporate manager for health and safety worldwide, a task that is complicated by the company’s size and geographic reach. He is responsible for 10,000 employees in a very broad variety of both manufacturing and distribution operations.
	With a huge number of different products, and the varied types and degrees of manual labor inherent in the company’s manufacturing and distribution activities, Herbst has devoted a large share of his attention to ergonomic issues. “With our product line and international markets, it’s easy to see that repetitive motion injuries and other ergonomic factors represent a significant risk for the company, and one that we need to manage very well,” says Herbst. “We found that nearly half of our injuries were related to ergonomics, regardless of whether we were making or shipping products, and we needed basic research on what was happening where, recommendations on initiatives that would reduce the incidence, and the training and evaluation necessary to make those recommendations deliver results.”
	Herbst hired TrueNorth founder and president Dr. Pam Harris to research and analyze the company’s data, create programs to reduce ergonomic injuries, and address a number of separate issues involving chemical, radiation and respiratory hazards. “From the structural standpoint, the ergonomic projects were a fairly routine scientific challenge,” says Harris. “Fisher Scientific had already identified the issues, and we were able to analyze the data, discover the patterns, create the programs and deliver the training to reduce injuries and lost time.”
	“The company’s work on ergonomic issues was fantastic,” says Herbst. “They helped us coordinate and implement an ergonomics program that has reduced repetitive motion injuries, generating significant savings on workers’ compensation claims. Because of the careful study, targeted intervention, effective training and even analysis of results of the new programs, I believe we are in a far better place than we were just a few years ago.”

In addition to its online compliance tracking service, TrueNorth offers expert consulting on environmental, health and safety issues. This expertise extends from basic research to the creation, delivery and monitoring of programs to reduce injuries, improve compliance, and enhance a company’s control over some of the costliest business risks it faces.

TrueNorth’s consulting expertise extends from basic research to the creation, delivery and monitoring of programs to reduce injuries, improve compliance, and enhance control over business risks. For more information, call 713.466.0829.