The components included radiators, cores, and charge-air coolers, moved by hand between carts and the conveyor serving TitanX's powder-paint line. The work combined heavy loads with bending, reaching, awkward grips, pushing, pulling, and repeated manual handling.
The plant changed several parts of that work at the same time. In its ergonomics success story published on OSHA's website, the company reports that within a year of implementing those actions, its overall Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred (DART) rate fell 31%, alongside the drop in its musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) DART rate.
The useful part of the case is not the percentage by itself. It is what the plant changed to get there.
The Problem Was the Job, Not Just the Lift
The powder-paint operation required employees to move relatively heavy components from carts onto the line and back again. There were no lifting assists being used for the task and no established two-person-lift approach for the affected material-handling step.
Manual-handling risk is rarely determined by weight alone. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Revised Lifting Equation considers characteristics including horizontal reach, vertical position, travel distance, asymmetry or twisting, frequency, and grip quality.
TitanX therefore had a work-design problem to solve, not simply an employee technique problem.
They Changed the Exposure in Several Ways
Bring the Work Closer to the Employee
A second tilter was added at the powder-paint line. Instead of requiring employees to repeatedly bend and reach toward components, the equipment allowed material to be positioned more favorably for handling. The company credits the tilter with reducing bending, reaching, and awkward grips.
The broader ergonomic principle: change where the work meets the employee before relying on the employee to compensate for a poor position.
Reduce Push and Pull Demands
TitanX also replaced manual pallet-jack movement with an electric pallet jack. The tilter addressed lifting position, while the powered pallet jack reduced the push/pull forces and fatigue involved in moving loaded material.
For an EHS practitioner, this is a reminder to evaluate the entire material-handling cycle. A job may involve lifting, lowering, carrying, pushing, pulling, reaching, holding, and repositioning. Improving only one motion can leave significant exposure elsewhere.
Make Assistance Available in Practice
TitanX updated the EHS instruction for the line to emphasize two-person lifts and adjusted staffing so a second employee is available when parts over 35 pounds are transferred to the paint line. Workers were encouraged to use the tilter and cart for loading as well, but the company reports they preferred two-person lifts.
The staffing change is what makes the control operational. A two-person-lift rule has limited value when production staffing regularly leaves one employee performing the task alone.
The 35-pound value itself should not be treated as a universal safe-lifting limit. It was a control selected by this employer for this operation. Appropriate manual-handling limits depend on the task, frequency, reach, posture, grip, travel distance, and other conditions.
The transferable lesson: if assistance is part of the control, design the work so assistance is reliably available when the trigger is reached.
Supervisors Were Given a Role Beyond Enforcement
TitanX provided Safe Lifting Train-the-Trainer instruction to supervisors so they could observe how work was actually being performed and coach employees during normal operations.
That is stronger than treating ergonomics training as a one-time classroom event. Supervisors can observe the task, identify exposure, reinforce the control, and escalate conditions the current process cannot solve.
Coaching should support controls designed into the work, not substitute for correcting a poorly designed task.
Ergonomics Became Part of Routine Operations
TitanX added ergonomics and manual-material-handling questions to its new online safety-inspection platform, with findings discussed at team meetings, and its updated EHS instruction for the powder-paint line covers two-person lifting, equipment inspection and use, and employee rotation. Union members also take part in safety meetings.
Those changes created several ways to detect problems through workers performing the job, supervisors observing the work, routine inspections, injury data, and safety meetings.
The intervention was therefore larger than buying a pallet jack and a tilter. The equipment mattered, but the surrounding management system helped keep the changes in use.
Most effective
- Elimination
- Substitution
- Engineering controls, discussed in this article Second tilter, electric pallet jack
- Administrative controls, discussed in this article Staffed two-person lifts, supervisor coaching, inspection questions
- PPE
Least effective
What Changed in the Injury Data
According to the company's account on OSHA's site, TitanX's overall DART rate declined from 5.1 in 2022 to 3.5 as of June 2024, a 31% reduction. Its MSD DART rate declined from 3.9 to 2.1, a 46% reduction over the same period.
Those results are encouraging, but they should be interpreted carefully. TitanX changed several parts of the work at approximately the same time, and the figures are employer-reported in a published success story, not the result of a controlled study.
The strongest lesson is therefore the combination of changes and the direction of the outcome, not a claim that one tilter, pallet jack, lifting rule, or training intervention independently produced the reduction.
What EHS Managers Can Take From the Case
The most transferable lesson from TitanX is that ergonomic improvement does not have to begin with full automation. It can begin by finding one manual-handling task with a clear combination of high force, poor position, repetition, and inadequate assistance, then changing the exposure deliberately.
| Question | TitanX example |
|---|---|
| Can we reduce the force? | Electric pallet jack |
| Can we improve the position of the work? | Tilter |
| When is manual assistance required? | Two-person lifts for parts over 35 pounds, with staffing to match |
| What keeps the control working? | Staffing, supervisor coaching, inspections and employee participation |
The intervention will change with the work. A distribution center may need a lift table. A maintenance shop may need a hoist. An assembly operation may need an adjustable fixture. A warehouse may need to change pallet height, package size, storage location, or material flow. The questions remain useful.
Start With the Job Producing the Exposure
If an ergonomics program feels too broad to tackle all at once, start with tasks associated with recurring strains or sprains, high-force lifting, repeated bending or reaching, significant pushing or pulling, awkward loads, employee complaints, or work employees routinely modify to get through the shift.
Observe the work with the people who perform it.
Do not begin only with, "Are employees lifting correctly?" Ask: "Why does this job require the lift to happen this way in the first place?"
That question creates more options. It can lead to changing the load, height, distance, equipment, material flow, staffing model, frequency, or the need for manual handling altogether.
Check One Manual-Handling Task
For one of your higher-risk manual-handling tasks, can you answer these questions?
- Have we observed the task as it is actually performed?
- Do we understand the major force, posture, repetition, and handling exposures?
- Have we considered changing the equipment or work position before relying on technique?
- If team lifting or assistance is required, is that assistance reliably available?
- Do supervisors know what conditions should trigger intervention?
- Are employees involved in identifying the most difficult parts of the task?
- Do routine inspections or observations check whether the controls remain in use?
- Can we show whether the intervention reduced exposure, not only whether injuries declined?
A "no" or "I'm not sure" identifies a useful place to look next.
