Ergonomic evaluation of workstations in industry with emphasis on economic considerations (Case Study: Automotive Industry)

Background and Aim: Annually, a percentage of the profits from the sale of goods and services by producers are spent on costs of musculoskeletal disorders due to non-compliance with ergonomic conditions. These costs are not favorable for organizations and employees and in most cases, ergonomic risk factors affect the quality of life of employees. Methods: The present field study was conducted as a census on 193 workers with medical records in one of the domestic automotive industries on December 2018. The highest prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders belonged to 16 workers, so their workstations were analyzed. Questionnaire with the help of Nordic questionnaire and through interviews with workers has been one of the methods of collecting data. Each of the selected workstations was analyzed with OWAS method after job photography and video recording. Results: The results showed that three work stations from the viewpoint of Action Categories are at the level of three, three work stations at the level of two and one station at the level of one, and then the costs of incidence and treatment and related actions due to establishing ergonomic conditions were calculated. Conclusion: Cost of workstations analysis, Preventive actions and also designing a process to reduce the musculoskeletal abnormalities of the staff, which results in ergonomic conditions, compared with the cost of incidence and treatment of musculoskeletal complications is cost-effective for this automotive industry.