Starting work at 6:30 a.m. is quite a stretch for Donna Beecham, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

For six minutes each weekday morning, Beecham pushes and pulls, bends and balances and rotates and relaxes her way to a productive shift at Kinedyne Corp.’s production plant in the East Hills Business Park.

The company pays Beecham and her 72 co-workers to loosen up by stretching their backs, shoulders, arms, wrists and fingers — body parts most susceptible to the repetitive-motion injuries that can come with assembling $30 million worth of cargo straps, equipment braces and storage-enabling beams each year.

“This is so cool,” Beecham says, as she settles in for another day’s work at the head of the plant’s retractor line. “I’m 53 years old, and people at my age have all kinds of aches and pains. But this is wonderful. I feel great, and I know it’s because of this stretching and everything we do to prepare for work.

“We’re trying to get out as much product as fast as we can, and that’s the whole point. But this few minutes of stretching really pays off.”

The program, nearly one year old, isn’t the only one making a difference at East Hills.

Sauer-Danfoss Inc., a maker of hydrostatic transmissions for heavy-duty off-road equipment, also opens each shift with a relatively light load. Groups of employees starting their days at the same time — whether their shifts start at 5 a.m. or 7 p.m. — gather for 10 minutes of stretching.

Keith Folkmann, plant manager, said the plant had seen a “steady decline” in on-the-job injuries since the program began a couple years ago. The work-related muscular skeletal disorders — “aches and pains and shoulder strains and stuff like that,” Folkmann said — that had been a problem no longer cut into productivity at Sauer-Danfoss.

“We’ve basically eliminated that type of injury,” Folkmann said.

Donna Beecham, Baldwin, joins employees at Kinedyne Corp., 3701 Greenway Drive, in stretching for 10 minutes at the start of their morning shift, which helps loosen muscles they use in jobs that often require repetitive motion.

Sauer-Danfoss learned about the value of stretching from an intern.

Lessons learned

Vickie McCauley, a health teacher at West Junior High School, spent a week studying the plant’s operations and work patterns as part of an educators’ internship program coordinated through Lawrence public schools. She spent her time researching ways to ease the pains that had stricken workers whose work responsibilities carried repetitive, stressful motions.

Soon she’d compiled a list of stretches, pasted them on a poster and pitched the plan to Sauer-Danfoss executives.

Soon the plant was reaping the benefits that since have spread into other company locations in North America, Folkmann said, with similar positive results at every turn.

McCauley couldn’t be happier.

Assembling retractor latches at Kinedyne Corp. follows many steps, each requiring repetitive motion and use of muscles in the hands and wrists.

“I preach this to my students all the time: It really doesn’t take that much time a day to do enough to improve your heart and lungs and muscles, et cetera,” said McCauley, whose master’s degree in education included an emphasis in exercise physiology. “It’s exciting to see that these companies are getting involved. … The benefits are just incredible.”

The positives also can stretch well beyond the physical.

At Kinedyne, worker efficiency scores have jumped from 85 two years ago to 100 today, said Dave McClain, materials manager.

Health pays off

“A healthy employee is a good employee,” McClain said. “We’ve got good people who produce and put out some pretty good numbers, and part of that could be because people are feeling pretty good about themselves.”

Scott Montgomery, Kinedyne plant supervisor, remembers hearing plenty of skepticism from employees when the program started a year ago with stretches devised by Kreider Rehabilitation Services at Lawrence Memorial Hospital. Even he had doubts.

But nowadays, as fellow workers embrace the plan, Montgomery finds himself doing all eight stretches everyday — even before fishing Saturday mornings.

“Within a few weeks everybody was enjoying it,” he said. “It’s amazing how well it makes you feel.”

It doesn’t hurt that workers have two choices when the buzzer sounds to start work at 6:30 a.m.: Stretch for up to 10 minutes, or start squeezing springs, pressing levers, rolling straps or whatever other tasks await for the shift that runs through 3 p.m.

“You have 10 minutes to do these stretches,” Montgomery said. “If you choose not to stretch, then you start work.”

Beecham smiles as she looks down her line of six coworkers, who will spend the day meticulously assembling up to 500 retractors that eventually will help secure wheelchairs in place during van rides.

Her previous jobs in production plants leave her thankful for the six weeks she’s already put in at Kinedyne.

“I worked for a screen printer, and everywhere you looked there were people with wrist braces on,” Beecham says, lining up more than a dozen pins for insertion into retractor springs. “I haven’t seen any here, and it’s amazing. I brag to my friends all the time about this program. It’s so cool.”