Ergonomic and Work Safety Evaluation Criteria of Process Excellence in the Foundry Industry

Improvement can be understood as a project that is undertaken to obtain additional benefits to the organization and its customers. In the literature, the term is most often present in the context of pro quality activities as a “continuous improvement”. In the companies’ practice it is striving for excellence that manifests itself through the implementation of various concepts, methods and improvement techniques and the use of models and matrices to evaluate the effectiveness of their implementation. That is why, such terms as Manufacturing Excellence and World Class Manufacturing – WCM, models and matrices that are their representation are of growing interest [1]. The overriding theme of the companies which follow this thought is to “be the best” in each area of activity (eg. production) and in any relevant issue (eg. corporate social responsibility). The foundry industry easily exposes growing interest in models and matrices which enable to determine in an objective way the directions of improvement. In small and mediumsized enterprises these functions are performed by selfassessment questionnaires which are provided to organizations by their customers (a form of assessment whether the organization meets customer requirements). Large organizations, particularly transnational ones build their own models, which are used as benchmark tools to improve internal processes in specific plants and external comparisons of achievements between particular enterprises and setting new targets. Regardless of the purpose for which they were developed, their scope encompasses related assessment criteria. The criteria of excellence assessment, which most often occur in these models include: strategic planning, knowledge management, environment, process control, movement maintenance, safety, health and ergonomic working environment. Closer analysis used in the models of criteria reference indicates a balanced approach to all relevant issues related to the industry in relation to both internal and external conditions.