Ergonomic Maturity Model: A Practical Macroergonomic Tool

This paper presents the Ergonomic Maturity Model, a new macro-ergonomic tool that allows organizations to assess their capacity to introduce, apply and integrate ergonomics into their processes. The model establishes five levels of maturity: Ignorance, Understanding, Experimentation, Regular Use and Innovation, the latter being the desired state. The maturity assessment with the model is supported by an assessment matrix, which describes the organization’s behavior at each maturity level through four macro factors and their corresponding factors: (1) Culture (acceptance and teamwork); (2) Integration (strategic alignment, management, commitment and resources); (3) Performers (knowledge and skills, person in charge and compensation); and (4) Surveillance (indicators, information systems and risk assessment). The Ergonomic Maturity Model is a practical tool, which from a systemic perspective, allows the identification of barriers, opportunities and strategies for improvement during the development and integration of ergonomics in the organization. Finally, the results of the application of the Ergonomic Maturity Model in two Colombian organizations are presented.