Ergonomics and Human Factors

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Ergonomics and Human Factors

• LECTURE 1

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HISTORY OF ERGONOMICS

• In the early 1900s, the production of industry
  was still largely dependent on human
  power/motion, and ergonomic concepts were
  developing to improve worker productivity.
  Scientific Management, a method that improved
  worker efficiency by improving the job process,
  became popular.

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World War II

• WORLD WAR II prompted greater interest in
  human-machine interaction as the efficiency of
  sophisticated military equipment (i.e.
  aeroplanes) could be compromised by bad or
  confusing design.
• Design concepts of fitting the machine to the
  soldier and logical/understandable control
  buttons evolved.

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• After World War II,
• The focus of concern expanded to include worker
  safety as well as productivity. Research began in
  a variety of areas such as
• Muscle force required to perform manuel tasks
• Compressive low back disk force when lifting
• Cardiovascular response when performing heavy
  labor
• Percieved maximum load that can be carried,
  pushed or pulled.

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Ergonomics (ergonwork nomoi natural laws/study)

• Ergonomics is the study of optimizing the
  interface between human beings and the designed
  objects and environments they interact with.
• An ergonomically designed product implies that
  the device blends smoothly with a persons body
  or actions.
• It is also the science of people-machine
  relationships.

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Ergonomics

• Study of the relationship between people and the
  furniture, tools, and machinery they use at work.
  
• The object is to improve work performance by
  removing sources of muscular stress and general
  fatigue, for example by presenting data and
  control panels in easy-to-view form, making
  office furniture comfortable, and creating a
  generally pleasant environment.

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Ergonomics

• It is the applied science of equipment design as
  for workplace, intended to maximize productivity
  by reducing operator fatigue or discomfort. Also
  called biotechnology, human engineering, human
  factors engineering.

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Ergonomics (or Human Factors)

• Is the scientific discipline concerned with the
  understanding of interactions among humans and
  other elements of a system, and the profession
  that applies theory, principles, data and methods
  to design in order to optimize human well-being
  and overall system performance.

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PHYSICAL ERGONOMICS

• Deals with the human bodys responses to physical
  and physiological loads.
• Relevant topics
• Manual materials handling
• Workstation layout
• Job demands
• Risk factors such as repetition,
• vibration, etc.

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COGNITIVE ERGONOMICS

• Also known as engineering psychology concerns
  mental processes such as perception, attention,
  cognition, motor control, and memory storage and
  retrieval as they affect interactions.
• Relevant topics
• Mental workload
• Decision-making
• Human-computer interaction
• training

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ORGANIZATIONAL ERGONOMICS

• Also known as macroergonomics is concerned with
  the optimization of sociotechnical systems,
  including their organizational structures,
  policies and processes.
• Relevant topics
• Shift work
• Scheduling
• Job satisfaction
• Supervision
• Teamwork

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Contribution of Ergonomics

• Ergonomics contributes to the design and
  evaluation of
• tasks,
• jobs,
• products,
• environments and,
• systems
• in order to make them compatible with the needs,
• abilities and limitations of people (IEA, 2000).

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Goals of Ergonomics

• Occupational injury and illness reduction
• Workers compensation costs containment
• Productivity improvement
• Work quality improvement
• Absenteeism reduction
• Government regulation compliance.

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Methods of achieving the goals

• Evaluation and control of work site risk factors
• Identification and quantification of existing
  work site risk conditions
• Recommendation of engineering and administrative
  controls to reduce the identified risk conditions
• Education of management and workers to risk
  conditions.

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Human Factors

• Human Factors is a term mainly used in the United
  States. In Europe and the rest of the world, the
  term ergonomics is more prevalent.

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Human Factors

• It is the study of how humans behave physically
  and psychologically in relation to particular
  environments, products, or services.
• The term usability is sometimes used as an
  alternative to ERGONOMY although human factors is
  really a larger area of study, including
  responses that are unrelated to usability, such
  as reactions and preferences in relation to
  visual and other sensory stimuli.

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Human Factors

• It is a field that involves research into human
  psychological, social, physical and biological
  characteristics, maintaining the information
  obtained from that research, and working to apply
  that information with respect to the design,
  operation or use of products or systems for
  optimizing human performance, health, safety
  and/or habibability.

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Human Factors

• Human factors is a set of structured methods and
  principles for identification, quantification and
  evaluation of the users needs and tasks for the
  development of systems, products, services and
  environments.

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• It is devoted to the effects of user interface
  design, job aiding, and personnel traing in the
  operation, maintenance, and installation of
  equipment.
• The study of human factors can help identify
  operations susceptible to human error and improve
  working conditions to reduce fatigue and
  inattention.

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Benefits gained by implementing Human Factors in
a development and a modification project

• Increased safety
• Reduced possibility of human error
• Increased user value, satisfaction and user
  friendliness
• Faster learning
• Lower rate of failure
• Improved stability
• Reduced probability of redesign
• Reduced costs in design and operation
• Improved communication between professions.