Jaggery, unrefined natural sugar, mostly produced from sugarcane continues to be an important sweetening agent in the diet because of its characteristic taste and nutritional value. The jaggery industry occupies a prominent place in the sugarcane economy, as it processes about 21 per cent of the total sugarcane grown in India. The jaggery industry is labor-intensive and provides employment to millions of sugarcane farmers and others. Jaggery making is typically a rural and small-scale enterprise owned and manned by farmers. Of late, the jaggery industry in the Kolhapur division is in crisis with rising production costs and availability/non-reliability of hardworking labour. A recent survey by an IITB project team in Kolhapur indicates that some 40 per cent of 900 units have closed down due to these reasons. Therefore one of the areas that needs considerable improvement is making the process labour-friendly. Learnings from industries like rice-milling and brick-making where some of these ergonomic issues were addressed to make the units labour-friendly is a motivation for this work.