Systematically conducting ergonomic risk assessments gives you a clear view of the risk present in your workplace.

But you can’t stop there. The goal of an ergonomics improvement process is the actual improvements themselves. Putting ergonomic control measures in place is how you reduce risk and build a better workplace in order to prevent common and costly musculoskeletal disorders.

But where do you start? How do you know which improvement projects to tackle first?

Prioritizing ergonomic improvement projects

Making ergonomic improvements in the workplace requires prioritizing actions.

Decisions must be made regarding which jobs and processes to invest in and redesign.

These decisions need to be based on business priorities. If you don’t have a way to prioritize, precious time and resources may be wasted.

The best way to prioritize ergonomic improvement projects is to come up with a quantifiable score you can assign to each improvement project based on the Impact verses the Cost and Effort of each project.

This best practice is referred to as ICE Prioritization. The ErgoPlus Platform  prioritization tool applies the ICE framework specifically for use in ergonomics and MSD prevention applications.

The result of the tool is a prioritization score from 0 – 10. High-impact, low-cost opportunities have high scores. Low-impact, high-cost opportunities have low scores.

By assigning a score to each improvement opportunity, you’ll be able to develop an ergonomic opportunity list that prioritizes the high-impact, low-cost opportunities. That’s where you should focus your effort and resources for the best return on your investment in ergonomics.

ICE prioritization

To be clear, this method is not intended to be a perfect system – it is actually designed to be a system of relative prioritization. The goal is to prevent you from having “analysis paralysis”. The tool isn’t objectively perfect, but it’s good enough to get the job done quickly so you can move the best ergonomic improvement projects to the top of your ergonomic opportunity list.

Impact: The overall impact of an ergonomic improvement project measured by cost savings,  risk reduction, employee population affected, effectiveness of the solution, and productivity gains.

Cost: How much capital is required for the project.

Effort: How much time and other resources are required to complete the project.

We’ve customized the ICE prioritization tool for ergonomic improvement projects. Here is how we think about ICE as it relates to ergonomics:

Impact

The following variables should be considered for scoring the impact of an improvement project:

• MSD History
• Exertion Rating
• Risk Index
• People Affected
• Effectiveness of Solution
• Productivity Gains

Keep in mind that answers should be made swiftly using your best judgement. The idea is to gain a relative understanding of how each improvement project compares to other improvement opportunities, not to achieve a perfect ranking.

MSD History

How many employees have been injured that have been performing this job task? What was the cost and severity of those injuries?

• Low injury incidents, cost, severity
• Moderate injury incidents, cost, severity, or
• High injury incidents, cost, severity

Exertion Rating

When asked, what exertion rating do employees give this job task?

• Low (1-2)
• Moderate (3-4)
• High (5)

Risk Index

How high is the risk index for this job task?

• Low
• Moderate
• High

People Affected

How many employees actively perform this job task?

• Low
• Moderate
• High

Effectiveness

How effective will viable solutions be at reducing the risk in this job task?

• No / minimal risk reduction
• Reduces risk
• Completely eliminates risk

Productivity Gains

What productivity gains will occur as a result of an improvement to this job task?

• No productivity gains
• Moderate productivity gains
• High productivity gains

Cost and Effort

Capital Investment

How much capital will be required to improve this job task?

• Low
• Moderate
• High

Time and Effort

How much time and effort will be required to improve this job task?

• Low
• Moderate
• High

Using ergonomics software to automatically create your ergonomic opportunity list

Once you’ve gone through your high risk job tasks and assigned priority scores to each of them inside ErgoPlus Industrial, you’re ready to build your ergonomic opportunity list and get started making improvements.

And it’s as simple as clicking a button.

Just navigate to the ergonomics database page and click “Ergonomic Opportunity List”. The system will automatically filter your data down to just the tasks with priority scores assigned to them and sort them in descending order.

This tells you which tasks should be prioritized for improvement, ensuring your ergonomics improvement process is as capital efficient as possible.

Let’s build your ergonomic opportunity list

ErgoPlus Industrial can help you create an ergonomic opportunity list and ensure your ergonomics process is capital efficient. This is the smart approach to prioritizing improvements and maximizing your investment in ergonomics.

You can get started with the ErgoPlus Industrial software platform at no charge. Here’s the link to start a free trial with no commitment or credit card necessary.