Many injures in industrial facilities are a result of repetitive strain. Lifting, bending and pulling objects consistently can 
wreak havoc on a person’s tendons, nerves, muscles and other soft body tissue. Sometimes putting them out of work for days at a time.
Consider hand wrapping. It’s a combination of lifting, bending and pulling a roll of film around a pallet of products. Hand wrapping is hard work and it’s even harder if you want to do it right. Extra strain is often required to wrap the load tight enough and it’s nearly impossible to effectively lock the load to the pallet by hand.
Operators will repeat this lifting, bending and pulling several times a day depending on how many loads need to be wrapped. And the risk is too high – and expensive. One of the most common places workers are injured is their back.
According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, there were 170,450 work-related back or spinal injuries in 2013. And various sources suggest that the average back injury (sprain/strain) can cost anywhere from $3,000 – $10,000 in direct costs (National Safety Council Statistics). And anywhere from $30,000 – $100,000 in indirect costs.
Today’s semi-automatic stretch wrappers automate almost all the tasks that put your people at risk for back injuries. They can attach the film, stretch it, and guide the film layers from top to bottom while the turntable spins, finishing the process by cutting the film at the end of the wrap cycle – all automatically. No lifting, bending or pulling required.
There’s more than enough risk to go around. The risk of repetitive strain injuries from hand wrapping is one that’s easy and worthwhile to eliminate.
This post was published on May 20, 2016 and updated on September 13, 2017.
May 20, 2016
