2005 ACGIH Lifting TLV: Employee-Friendly Presentation and Guidance for Professional Judgment

Technical Report · Mon May 22 04:00:00 EDT 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1358182· OSTI ID:1358182

Splittstoesser, Riley ^[1]; O'Farrell, Daniel Edward ^[1]; Hill, John ^[2]; McMahon, Terrence ^[3]; Sastry, Nikhil ^[3]; Tiemeier, Mark ^[3]

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1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
2. Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States)
3. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)

The American Council of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) Lifting Threshold Limit Values (TLVs) provide a tool to reduce incidence of low back and shoulder injuries. However, application of the TLV is too complicated for floor-level workers and relies on professional judgment to assess commonly encountered tasks. This paper presents an Employee-Friendly Simplified Format of the TLV that has been adapted from Table 1 of the Lifting TLV presented in the 2005 TLVs and BEIs Based on the Documentation of the Threshold Limit Values for Chemical Substances and Physical Agents & Biological Exposure Indices. This simplified format can be employed by floor-level workers to self-assess lifting tasks. The Ergonomics Project Team also provides research-based guidance for applying professional judgment consistent with standard industry practice: Extended Work Shifts – Reduce weight by 20% for shifts lasting 8 to 12 hours; Constrained Lower Body Posture – Reduce weight by 25% when lifting in such postures; Infrequently Performed Lifts – Lift up to 15 lbs. ≤3 lifts per hour within the zones marked “No safe limit for repetitive lifting” in the TLVs Table 1; Asymmetry beyond 30° – Reduce weight by 10 lbs. for lifts with up to 60° asymmetry from sagittal plane.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-06NA25396
• OSTI ID: 1358182
• Report Number(s): LA-UR--17-24181
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
Analysis and Assessment
Ergonomic Evaluations