How to Select Your Ergonomic Assessment Tools

Selecting a common set of ergonomic risk assessment methods and tools keeps everyone on the same page, ensures consistent, reliable data, and allows for a one-to-one comparison across sites, departments, jobs, and tasks. Read this article to learn how to select a set of ergonomic assessment tools to use at your worksite.

“You cannot mandate productivity, you must provide the right tools to let people become their best.”
— Steve Jobs

One of the biggest struggles we see from safety and ergonomics teams just getting started with ergonomic risk assessments is the tool selection.

What ergonomic assessment tools should we use? When should we use them? Do we need a job-level tool or a task-level tool? Do we need a checklist evaluation? Should we make our own tool? How do the tools work together in a coherent, logical way to recognize hazards and progressively quantify risk levels without wasting valuable time and energy?

These are a few of the common questions we hear. And for good reason: you absolutely must provide the right tools for the job. Or, as Steve Jobs knew, your people will never become their best.

Following are the different types of ergonomic assessment tools, principles for tool selection, and a best practice ergonomic assessment toolkit.

Let’s get started.

Types of Ergonomic Assessment Tools

First, let’s understand the lay of the land. There are a lot of ergonomic assessment tools out there. Each tool has a specific purpose and should be used a certain way. This also means that each tool has limitations and shouldn’t be used in every situation.

Ergonomic Assessment Tools by Type

Broadly, there are three types of ergonomic risk assessment tools:

Hazard Recognition Checklists
Simple Risk Assessment Screening Tools
Objective Assessment Tools

(Note: To get a sense for all of the available tools out there, you might find this tool picker from the Centre of Research Expertise for the Prevention of Musculoskeletal Disorders (CRE-MSD) helpful.)

1. Hazard Recognition Checklists

These checklists do exactly what their name implies. They help you document any recognized ergonomic hazards at your worksite. They will usually include a list of hazards such as awkward postures, forceful exertions, and repetitive motions. When you or a member of your team observes these hazards, you document them with the checklist.

Hazard Recognition checklists are qualitative and low complexity. Examples include:

ErgoPlus Quick Screen
WISHA Caution Zone
WISHA Hazard Zone
Kodak Ergonomics Checklist
HSE Risk Filter

2. Simple Risk Assessment Screening Tools

Simple Risk Assessment screening tools systematically evaluate the major ergonomic risk factors for each of the major body segments. They will typically have guidance criteria for posture, force, and repetition.

Simple Risk Assessment screening tools are typically quantitative and medium complexity. Examples include:

ErgoPlus Job Screen
Quick Exposure Checklist
HSE Risk Assessment Worksheet
ISO 11228-3

3. Objective Assessment Tools

Objective Assessment tools are comprehensive, detailed evaluations of specific risk factors.

Objective Assessment tools are quantitative and high complexity. Examples include:

NIOSH Lifting Equation
Rapid Entire Body Assessment
Rapid Upper Limb Assessment
Snook Tables
WISHA Lifting Calculator
Job Strain Index
HAV Calculator
Ohio BWC/OSU Push-Pull Guidelines
ACGIH Hand Activity Level
ACGIH Upper Limb Localized Fatigue
AAMA Metabolic/Physiological Assessment Method
2D Static Biomechanical Model

Ergonomic Assessment Tools by Body Segment

Not every assessment tool is designed for a comprehensive analysis that includes each ergonomic risk factor for each body segment. Make sure you understand the primary focus for each tool as well as its limitations.

Ergonomic Assessment Tools by Level of Abstraction

There are job-level tools and there are task-level tools. There is a time and a place for both, just make sure you understand at what level you’re assessing and reach for a tool that matches your context.

Ergonomic Assessment Tool Selection Principles

Here are a few principles and best practices for selecting your ergonomic assessment tools. You can use them as a filter when you’re introduced to new tools to determine if they’d be a good fit at your worksite.

A Set of Tools, Not One Tool

Given that there are tools of different types, tools that evaluate different body segments, and tools that evaluate risk at varying levels of abstraction, what you really need is a set of tools, not just one tool. Your tool set should include each type of tool so that you can always reach for a tool appropriate to the context of your situation.

At the same time, you don’t want to overwhelm yourself and your ergonomics team with too many tools in your bag. Keep it simple and provide specific guidance on when to use each tool.

A Mix of Qualitative and Quantitative

Your ergonomics process will benefit from having both qualitative and quantitative tools at your disposal.

Qualitative, checklist-style assessments are great because they have low training requirements. Anyone that recognizes an ergonomic risk factor can document it, which is an opportunity for you to involve everyone at your worksite in the ergonomics process. Qualitative tools also allow for quickly screening your worksite to determine where you should prioritize your more in-depth ergonomic analysis.

Quantitative tools allow for a data-driven continuous improvement approach, helping you measure progress and show quantitative risk reduction over time. They are also useful as design guidelines when you’re making workplace improvements or implementing new jobs and processes at your worksite.

A Tool for Each Level of Abstraction

You should have both job-level tools and task-level tools and use them appropriately.

A Logical Progression Through Each Level

Your tools should work together in harmony. There should be a logical progression through each level of assessment.

Practical Enough to Use, Accurate Enough to Trust

There is a tension in ergonomics between pinpoint accuracy and a tool that is practical enough for everyday practice. You likely have hundreds of jobs to evaluate and there is only so much time in the day. You need a tool set that is practical enough to use and also accurate enough to trust.

A Best Practice Set of Ergonomic Assessment Tools

Standardizing your ergonomic assessment methods and tools keeps everyone on the same page, ensures consistent, reliable data, and allows for a one-to-one comparison across sites, departments, jobs, and tasks.

Here are the tools we use ourselves, recommend to clients, and have built into ErgoPlus Industrial, our ergonomics management software platform.

Hazard Recognition:

ErgoPlus Quick Screen

Simple Risk Assessment:

ErgoPlus Job Screen

Objective Assessments:

NIOSH Lifting Equation
REBA
RULA
Snook Tables (Push, Pull, Carry, Lift/Lower)
WISHA Lifting Calculator
More coming soon

ErgoPlus Industrial Ergonomic Assessment Tools

As you can see from the example above, we used:

a set of tools where each tool had a specific purpose, not just one tool
a mix of qualitative and quantitative tools
a tool for each level of abstraction to get a comprehensive understanding of risk and not allow any tasks or risk factors to slip through the cracks
a logical progression through each level, where the tools worked together to form a complete picture of the job and tasks involved

Whether you decide to use ErgoPlus Industrial for managing your ergonomics process or not, you can use these principles and best practices to choosing the right set of ergonomic assessment tools for your worksite.

Your Free Ergonomics Planning Guide and Complete Toolkit

This article is an installment of the How to Get Started With Ergonomic Risk Assessments series, which is now available to you free of charge as part of the Ergonomics Planning Guide and Toolkit.

Your toolkit includes:

How to Get Started With Ergonomic Risk Assessments
How to Choose Short and Long Term Ergonomic Assessment Metrics
How to Build Your Ergonomic Assessment Team
How to Select Your Ergonomic Assessment Tools
How to Train Your Ergonomic Assessment Team
How to Leverage Technology to Get the Most Out of Your Ergonomic Assessment Data
A free spreadsheet to help you track progress as you launch or revamp your ergonomics process

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