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The design of work around human characteristics. For handling the rule is: German manual handling regulations set no limit value but require a risk assessment – the key indicator method of the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health provides the score from weight, frequency, posture and working conditions.
Ergonomics separates two concepts. Load is what acts on a person from outside – weight, posture, frequency, duration. Strain is what that produces in the individual, and it depends on age, constitution and practice. The same load strains two people differently.
Only the load can be designed. Ergonomic work design therefore reduces it until it is tolerable in the long term for every employee who is to work at the station.
Handling is not just lifting. The German Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) distinguishes six types of physical workload, each with its own key indicator method: lifting, holding and carrying; pulling and pushing; manual handling operations with many uniform movements; whole-body forces; body movement; awkward body postures.
This matters in practice because a measure can change the type of workload: a load that is no longer lifted but pushed on a trolley has removed lifting and makes pushing the thing to assess.
German occupational safety law prescribes the order: combat hazards at source, then technical, then organisational and finally personal measures. For handling this means: first check whether the operation can be eliminated, then use a technical aid, then arrange rotation and breaks, and lastly instruct.
The German Load Handling Ordinance sets no fixed weight limit. The Maternity Protection Act is an exception: without mechanical aids, pregnant women may not regularly lift, hold, move or carry loads of more than 5 kg by hand, nor occasionally loads of more than 10 kg.
A handling device takes the weight, not the mass. A floating load of 200 kg still has to be accelerated, guided and stopped; the operator supplies the force for that. Handle height, handle shape, view of the part and the distances covered with the device count just as much.
A device that is slower or more awkward than working by hand is not used. Ergonomics therefore decides not only health but whether the investment has any effect at all.
For assessing manual handling there is the EN ISO 11228 series: part 1 on lifting and carrying, part 2 on pushing and pulling, part 3 on handling of low loads at high frequency. The EN 1005 series deals with human physical performance in connection with machinery and addresses designers.
What Entracon offers here is on the matching page.
See what we offer| Type of workload | Example | Technical answer |
|---|---|---|
| Lifting, holding, carrying | transferring cartons, loading parts | lifting aid, manipulator, lift table |
| Pulling and pushing | trolleys, mesh boxes, suspended loads | smooth-running trolleys, rail system, travel drive |
| Manual handling operations | assembly with many identical movements | fixture, torque arm, parts presentation |
| Awkward postures | working overhead or bent forward | bring the part to working height, turner, lifting axis |
In Germany there is no general weight limit. The employer has to assess the workload – usually with the key indicator method – and take measures if it is substantially increased or high. Only the Maternity Protection Act states fixed values. Other countries have their own rules and guidance.
Not on its own. Instruction is a personal measure and comes last in the statutory hierarchy. It supplements technical and organisational measures but does not replace them.
Because inertia remains. The device carries the weight, but accelerating and stopping cost force, and friction in joints and trolleys is added. Ease of movement is therefore a design criterion.
There is no limit value. There is a duty to assess.
View GuidesThe question is never “which unit?”. It is “which movement?”.
View GuidesThere is no 25-kilogram limit. There is an assessment.
View GuidesA device nobody uses has improved nobody ergonomics.
ViewOne short conversation usually settles more than three quotations. Call or write — you will reach an engineer directly.
Start typing – for example “balancer”, “SAP” or “pipe stress”.
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