Is there enough information to calculate the financial benefits of ergonomics projects?
Many authors studied work situations and, mainly, ergonomics projects concerning the financial benefit point of view. At the same time seems to be little information available concerning these financial benefits in manufacturing companies' processes. The aim of this article is to identify if there enough information available within a company to quantify the financial benefits of an ergonomic project. The study was applied on two manufacturing companies, one in Brazil and other in Portugal. A literature review based checklist and a manager interview was applied on each company in order to identify if the information was available and how were been used. The two companies have revealed a good quantity of available information regarding ergonomics benefit calculation. The interviews showed that managers are not aware of the financial savings possibility with investments in ergonomics projects.
Production Engineering and Transportation Department, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Av. Osvaldo Aranha 99, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. ergocelo@gmail.com
M Pereira da
MP
Silva
C
C
Pruffer
F G
FG
Amaral
D001938:Brazil; D057189:Checklist; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D003625:Data Collection; D006804:Ergonomics / Q000191:economics*; D007221:Industry; D033181:Information Dissemination; D011174:Portugal; D036301:Qualitative Research