DOE JGI wins 2010 Ergo Cup

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI) now has a matched pair of Ergo Cups after winning at the 13th Annual Applied Ergonomics Conference held March 22-25, 2010 in San Antonio, Texas.

The Ergo Cup highlights ergonomic innovations from institutions and multinational corporations. The DOE JGI's winning entry, "Empowering Employees in Ergonomics," was for the Ergonomic Program Improvement Initiatives category.

Ergonomics is the science of designing optimal equipment and practices to reduce musculoskeletal disorders in the workplace. The DOE JGI's entry focused on employee-driven elements of the DOE JGI program that help promote awareness of ergonomics and safety while encouraging employee involvement in both safety and ergonomics.

The DOE JGI also had an entry in the Workplace Solutions category.

The DOE JGI won the 2007 Ergo Cup for its team-driven workplace solutions category entry. The Shake 'N Plate instrument was designed to ease upper body fatigue for employees working on the Sanger sequencing production line that were manually processing 22 cm x 22 cm plates of bacterial cultures

Since 2005, the DOE Joint Genome Institute has focused on the application of genomics to bioenergy and environmental issues, and as DOE JGI employees routinely perform highly repetitive tasks both in the laboratory and in the office, the DOE JGI has an on-site ergonomist who works with staffers to develop ergonomic solutions suited to each worker and the surrounding work environment.

Provided by DOE/Joint Genome Institute