For better ergonomics at the workplace

... is an Australian statewide organization established to provide high-quality services to support the delivery of patient care. Their business solutions ensure ongoing improvement, increasing levels of efficiency and greater savings for the healthcare system.

An Australian hospital approached us looking to improve ergonomics in the workplace and in particular the pull/push force required on their retherm carts. These are moved by the staff over long distances between the docking pods in the kitchen up to the wards to deliver hot meals to patients.

The carts were originally equipped with a competitors’ grey rubber wheels, i.e. two fixed castors and two swivel castors with brakes.

With its high load capacities and very low rolling resistance, the Blickle wheel series POBS is an optimal solution for the manually operated carts. The particularly thick tread is made of the soft, reaction-cast Blickle Besthane® Soft polyurethane and moulded onto a polyamide wheel centre. This guarantees a high operational comfort and compensates vibrations and shocks which could jeopardise the sensible transported goods. This solution ideally supports ergonomics in the workplace.

Another advantage is that the premium wheel is hydrolysis and corrosion resistant which makes it suitable for hygienically sensitive areas.

To find the appropriate product, the customer conducted extensive trials with another competitors’ polyurethane wheels and the Polyurethane POBS “Blickle Besthane® Soft” wheels.

The new Blickle POBS outperformed the competitors’ polyurethane wheels over the period of trials by far and the overall outcome was that the pull/push force was significantly reduced. Further to this the general impression was that the Blickle wheels allowed a much smoother, less noisy and more comfortable ride.