Whiteboard Series: Key Metrics for Your Ergonomics Process

Video Transcript

Launching a large scale ergonomics process can seem daunting, but often times a real challenge comes when you’re sustaining the process over time. Identifying simple activity metrics to strive for annually is going to help you maintain momentum for the long haul. Here’s an example of a five year plan. You can pick and choose elements that you like and move through it as quickly or as slowly as you’d like based on where you are.

Year one: Prepare, identify gaps and where you want to start. Create reasonable and appropriate policies and guidance documents. Some examples of year one metrics might include things like percentage of stakeholders signed off on the policy number of people trained, and the number of sites with ergonomics teams identified.

In year two, we focus on Deployment.  Set achievable goals, hold consistent meetings, and try to hold people accountable.  Some examples of year two metrics include things like number of jobs assessed, number of direct causes identified, and number of improvements implemented.

Year three: Expand. Focus on what works, what doesn’t work, and what adjustments you want to make. Some metrics in year three might include percent reduction in high risk jobs, number of jobs with follow up assessments and cost to implement solutions.

Year four: Sustain. You should be integrating ergonomics into your continuous improvement process and using design guidelines in your new product introduction and builds. Metrics in year four might be number of locations audited, number of high risk tasks introduced, and percentage of high risk body areas.

Year five: Enhance. Your process doesn’t have to end after five years, but here are some more opportunities to enhance your process. Number of new team Members trained. Number of red body areas eliminated and what your 3 to 5 year return on investment looks like.

Keep in mind there’s no perfect timeline or path to success. This is definitely a marathon not a sprint. Learn more about Industrial Ergonomics and how VelocityEHS can help you at EHS.com.