Free Ergonomics ROI calculator

Quantify the impact of your interventions

‍How much will it cost, and what is our expected payout?

This is the first question any safety specialist will hear when trying to bring a new tool to their workplace. It's a tough question to answer -- with only limited online resources that can help. Quantifying the benefits of a new solution is difficult in any field, but especially for those in safety. While it is easy to quantify the savings of an ergonomic solution post implementation, it can be difficult to justify the upfront cost as an investment in workers’ safety.

The team at TuMeke Ergonomics wanted to help safety practitioners solve this problem. To do so, we put together a new ROI calculator. Our team of engineers, ergonomists, and academics worked with stakeholders in the industry to better understand the cost-benefit relationships. In using this tool, you’ll notice we paid special attention to the robustness of its underlying mathematical principles. For example, in calculating your final return on investment we implemented a discounted cash flow analysis to account for the fact that savings over three years are not as valuable as savings now. A dollar today is always worth more than a dollar tomorrow.

We built this tool to be used by anyone, regardless of their biomechanics or accounting experience. When you first begin, you’ll be prompted to input your specs through a series of 3 steps. Each step will guide you through what to input and includes easy-to-read explanations if you need help.

Step 1 will ask you for the basics of the job you are looking to improve: the job’s name, the number of employees in the job, and the job’s hourly wage. It’s okay if you don’t know this information off-hand, just provide your best estimate.

Step 2 is all about the associated costs. You’ll be asked to select the type of injury and how often it occurs. You can adjust the costs to better reflect your organization's internal records. Please note, the direct cost is likely covered by your organization’s insurance while the indirect cost is likely not. The indirect cost includes lost productivity, retraining, fixing equipment, etc. The cost ratios are outlined in the table below and are from OSHA’s e-tool https://www.osha.gov/safetypays/background.
Step 3 revolves around the solution you are looking to implement. You’ll be asked to give estimated costs of this solution and gauge both its effectiveness and related productivity improvements. The ROI calculator will walk you through each of the necessary buckets.

Once you finish the 3 steps, the ROI calculator will present you with its calculations in a printable report! For each solution you identified, you’ll be given expected injury savings and productivity improvements. You’ll also be able to see your Annual Savings, Annual Return, Savings over 3 Years, and Total Return. Your Total Return is what percentage of your original investment towards the solution is recouped in 3 years.
Both Solution Costs and Injury Costs are dynamic. This means you can adjust the data without having to repeat Steps 1-3. The ROI calculator gives you the Total Annual Cost as well as the Additional Sales needed in order to cover associated costs.

We are proud to release this tool for free to whomever may find it useful. We would like to give a special thanks to Rick Goggins, a Labor and Industries ergonomist and PSHFES Council Member, and his related work in developing a cost-benefit calculator for ergonomics. Inspiration was derived from Rick Goggins’ calculator.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to reach out here if you have any questions.

Best,

The TuMeke Ergonomics team

Sustain Productivity. Reduce Injuries.

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