How does an ergonomist work in industry?

Ergonomist: Everything you need to know about the profession of ergonomist?

An ergonomist’s mission is to optimize work situations in order to preserve the health of employees and to increase the quality, efficiency, productivity and overall performance of the job.

If necessary, he prescribes tools, improves the existing ones, recommends adapted material or modifies the processes to make the performance and the quality at work sustainable and general.

To carry out its mission, it is necessary to understand how employees interact with their work environment, what their missions are, their work methods and to collect concrete data in order to have a complete and exhaustive overview.

The goal for the employer is to avoid being at the origin of dysfunctions that could lead to consequences much more harmful and costly than the cost of an ergonomist’s intervention: MSD, work stoppages for professional illness, accidents, disruption of the production chain…

What does the ergonomist do in concrete terms? First, the analysis!

The first phase consists of analyzing the tasks assigned to each operator on the workstation concerned. Observation, understanding of the process, exchange with the employees and their managers in order to understand the stakes, the constraints, the reasons of the current operation.

The ergonomist will therefore take into account human characteristics in the design of industrial facilities and environments.
He will also have to identify the tools used, their interest, the layout of the station, the flows to evaluate the danger points, what can be improved and what should be kept.

In other words, the ergonomist will audit what is operational (gestures, postures, etc.) and what is organizational (time, range, organization of workstations and logistic flows, etc.), as well as the context of implementation, architectural constraints…

What are the points to watch out for when an ergonomist is involved?

For an MSD prevention diagnosis, with the aim of improving the working environment and long-term performance, care must first be taken to draw up an exhaustive set of specifications, without censoring oneself and by involving all the stakeholders concerned.

The important thing is then to make sure that the operators work in front of the ergonomist as they really do on a daily basis and not in a watered down version because we are being observed.

It is also essential to take into account not only the physical but also the psychosocial aspects of the work.

In order to achieve this step, it is vital to involve employees in the audit and transformation of their workstations.

What is the cost of an ergonomic service?

It is estimated the cost of a complete ergonomist study service on a simple workstation between 3500 € and 5000 € depending on the ergonomists. Depending on the scope of the ergonomics audit and the number of workstations to be analyzed, it is not uncommon to see amounts of up to € 30,000 for a complete plant.

When the company becomes too important, the choice is often made to integrate an Ergonomist position into the workforce in order to benefit from this added value in the long term and to keep the knowledge internally.

The cost of a detailed audit with specific recommendations will vary according to many criteria such as:

• How many positions are analyzed?
• How many employees do you hold this position?
• How many operations are there on this item?
• What is the quality of the supports and tools used by the ergonomist?
• What experience and expertise does your partner have?
• Do you want a one-off audit or do you want to set up long-term support?
• Do you expect to receive training at the end of the service?