Nantes Métropole turned to the Disrupt program to explore solutions to counteract the physical wear and tear on maintenance workers.
Role
UX/UI
Field
Health
Duration
6 months
Company
School
Coworkers
• Benoit BERNIER (Digital Cultures)
• Hristo MIRONOV (Intellectual Property)
• Atefeh NOOSHABADI (Language Sciences)
• Luc LE MEE (Econometrics and Statistics)
• Hugo DORNE (Computer Engineer)
• François TERRIEN (Head of IT Resources, BATI Nantes Métropole)
🙋 Users
• Maintenance workers
• Prevention Advisor
• Manager
💊 Problematic
How can effective preventive and corrective measures be put in place to limit occupational wear and tear specific to the building industry? How can maintenance workers be enabled to remain in employment in the long term, in a context of longer working lives?
How can we make our maintenance workers aware of this occupational wear and tear? How can we make them more autonomous and involved in prevention in their daily work?
How can we collect data on the posture and repetitive movements of workers in order to objectify and facilitate the work of the prevention advisor?
🪂 Challenge
Value proposition: Simplify the daily tasks of maintenance workers while reducing occupational wear and tear and the risk of accidents.
Possible solutions: Prevention, Relief (through ergonomic solutions such as exoskeletons) or Cure (requiring medical expertise). We have chosen to focus on prevention, as this allows us to limit the problem at its source rather than simply mitigating it. This approach has led to three solutions: horizontal communication, whereby experienced workers pass on best practices to younger colleagues; warm-ups, consisting of gentle muscle preparation before work, adapted to repetitive tasks rather than intense efforts; and finally, raising awareness of the work done by the prevention team, to increase appreciation and acceptance of their interventions.
Final solution: The solution chosen consists of estimating the occupational wear and tear on employees by analyzing the repetitive movements associated with their tasks, using the Carl Touch application, without collecting personal data, which ensures compliance with the GDPR and facilitates acceptance. This tool would enable agents, prevention advisors, and managers to better understand and monitor workload and posture-related risks. The method for quantifying these movements in order to measure occupational wear and tear in concrete terms still needs to be defined precisely.
🧠 My approach
Discovery phase
Interviews: Initially, we worked closely with David, our mentor, the Nantes Métropole prevention advisor, managers, and numerous agents to understand their difficulties related to occupational wear and tear and adjust our solution. These discussions, supplemented by interviews with external professionals (SNCF, construction, occupational medicine, MIP Laboratory (Motricité, Interaction, Performance)), enabled us to incorporate a variety of perspectives, understand the multifactorial causes of occupational burnout, and refine our approach.
These varied discussions allowed us to validate our choices, improve technical feasibility, and open up prospects for wider deployment through co-production between organizations.
Tools: We developed personas (maintenance workers, the prevention advisor, and the manager) that we enriched throughout the project with new data collected. We also differentiated between novice workers, who are less aware of risks, and experienced workers, who are more knowledgeable, in order to better take their specific needs into account in our solution.
The User Journey, How Could We, and Solution Sheets tools enabled us to identify and formalize points of friction, then use them to deepen our analysis, develop our ideas, conduct user tests, and refine our final solution.
Analysis of existing solutions: Our analysis of the competition shows that the market remains immature and that no comprehensive solution currently exists. To deepen our understanding, we consulted the MIP (Motricité, Interaction, Performance) laboratory in Nantes, which specializes in this type of subject. Their feedback confirmed that real-time tracking technologies are not yet widely available, thus validating the relevance of our exploration.
Design
Data collection: We designed a system to quantify occupational wear and tear on agents by establishing a table correlating tasks and joint stress, using either a low-cost manual ergonomic analysis method (RULA method) or a technological approach based on Perception Neuron® position sensors and the 3D Experience software suite.
Supports : The data collected is used to inform the agent, manager, and prevention advisor simultaneously, each of whom has access to adapted tools: personalized advice via a mobile app for the agent, an objective dashboard via a web platform for the prevention team, and joint fatigue monitoring to facilitate the distribution of tasks by the manager. This multi-purpose solution can also be used to compare interventions, provide targeted recommendations, and anticipate the intervention of specialized professionals. The overall objective is to limit the risks associated with occupational wear and tear, leverage field data, and support concrete ergonomic actions.
📈 Résults & Impact
Our solution could not only improve the brand image and attractiveness of Nantes Métropole, thereby facilitating recruitment, but it also offers significant potential for collaboration with other organizations facing the same issues of professional wear and tear. By considering a co-production, it would be possible to share costs and strengthen the economic viability of the project, while extending its impact to players such as David (Enedis), who is already interested in its application.
