CH”1”

Ergonomics is the study of the interaction between people and machines and the factors that affect the
interaction. Its purpose is to improve the performance of systems by improving human machine
interaction. This can be done by ‘designing-in’ a better interface or by ‘designing-out’ factors in the work
environment, in the task or in the organization of work that degrade human–machine performance.
Systems can be improved by:

• Designing the user-interface to make it more compatible with the task and the user. This makes it
easier to use and more resistant to errors that people are known to make.

• Changing the work environment to make it safer and more appropriate for the task.

• Changing the task to make it more compatible with user characteristics.

• Changing the way work is organized to accommodate people’s psychological, and social needs.

The implementation of ergonomics in system design should make the system work better by eliminating
aspects of system functioning that are undesirable, uncontrolled or unaccounted for, such as

2 Introduction to ergonomics

• Inefficiency – when worker effort produces sub-optimal output.

• Fatigue – in badly designed jobs people tire unnecessarily.

• Accidents, injuries and errors – due to badly designed interfaces and/or excess stress either mental or
physical.

• User difficulties – due to inappropriate combinations of subtasks making the dialogue/interaction

cumbersome and unnatural.

• Low morale and apathy.

Human requirements are therefore system requirements, rather than secondary considerations and can
be stated in general terms as requirements for

• Equipment that is usable and safe

• Tasks that are compatible with people’s expectations, limitations and training

• An environment that is comfortable and appropriate for the task

• A system of work organization that recognizes people’s social and economic need

Ergonomic entropy (Karwowski et al., 1994) is disorder in system functioning that occurs owing to a lack
of compatibility in some or all of the interactions involving the human operator. This incompatibility can
occur for a variety of reasons, for example:
• Human requirements for optimum system functioning were never considered at the design stage (e.g.
there was a failure to consult appropriate standards, guidelines or textbooks).

• Inappropriate task design (e.g. new devices introduce unexpected changes in the way tasks are carried
out and these are incompatible with user knowledge, habits or capacity, or they are incompatible with
other tasks).

• Lack of prototyping (e.g. modern software development is successful because it is highly iterative;
users are consulted from the conceptual stage right through to pre-production prototypes)

The purpose of ergonomics is to enable a work system to function better by improving the interactions
between users and machines.

There are two ways in which ergonomics impacts upon systems design in practice. Firstly, many
ergonomists work in research organizations or universities and carry out basic research to discover the
characteristics of people that need to be allowed for in design. This research often leads, directly or
indirectly, to the drafting of standards, legislation and design guidelines. Secondly, many ergonomists
work in a consultancy capacity either privately or in an organization. They work as part of a design team
and contribute their knowledge to the design of the human–machine interactions in work systems. This
often involves the application of standards guidelines and knowledge to specify particular characteristics
of the system
There is often a tendency to attribute accidents, breakdowns and low productivity to the human
component of work systems. Human behavior at work takes place in the context of a system and is
shaped by the way the system is designed. System malfunctions that involve humans must therefore be
analyzed in context, which requires that the focus of the analysis be shifted from the human to the
human– machine system. For example, the design of the machine may invite the human to make a
particular type of error, or the machine itself may not be immune to the types of errors that humans are
known to make

Standards specify ‘how we do things’ and are usually adopted by agreement, often between different
countries. They do not have the same force as regulations but are normally more specific than
guidelines and contain more technical information

An important role for ergonomics generally and for the ergonomist working in a large organization is to
act as an interface between developments in basic human and biological sciences and organizational
needs. The ergonomist is frequently one of the few, if not the only, member of the design team with
formal training in these areas capable of interpreting the latest legislation, findings and reports

Ergonomics has generated many design guidelines and recommendations, which are frequently made
available to engineers and designers. This information is usually of a general nature and cannot always
be used in a straightforward ‘cookbook fashion’ as an ‘off-the-shelf’ solution

Three key concepts in any discussion of the economic benefits of ergonomics are

• Efficacy – whether the applications work under ideal circumstances.

• Effectiveness – whether the applications work under normal conditions of use.

• Efficiency – whether the applications save more resources than they consume.

Preventive efforts can be cost effective, but only when

• The measure is inexpensive and only has to be applied once

• The incidence of the problem is high

• The cost of dealing with it is high

• The measure is effective in preventing the problem and has few side effect

Goodyear plants were required to establish ergonomics committees, give general awareness training to
personnel and carry out audits to identify ergonomic problems in the plant. In this way, an ‘internal
market’ was created for ergonomics and the programmed proceeded with a reactive phase in which
existing problem areas were identified and problems were rectified. An ergonomics training
programmed was set up and aimed at plant nurses, industrial engineers, safety managers, training
specialists, industrial hygienists’ industrial relations personnel, production specialists

Plant 2 went from being the plant with the highest incident rate to one of the lowest after introduction
of the program. The program was also evaluated using productivity data from sections of plants in which
redesign efforts has been carried out, In one section, a 60% increase in productivity was achieved by
reducing fatigue caused by unnecessary operator movement and movements requiring extended hand
reach
Car assembly Eklund (1995) investigated the relationship between ergonomics and quality in a Swedish
car assembly plant and found clear relationships between ergonomic demands and quality problems.
One of his suggestions was that the quality was degraded by the sociotechnical design, which separated
inspection from quality, and that better quality could be obtained by making production line workers
responsible for their own quality control and inspection. Three categories of ergonomic problem were
identified across a range of jobs: musculoskeletal loading due to the task or the posture; ‘difficult to do’
tasks (owing to the design of task objects); and psychologically demanding tasks. Next, quality control
data from the assembly of 2000 cars were obtained. Quality data from 12 finished cars were also
obtained. The cars were randomly sampled and disassembled in a special department for quality control
purposes. Finally, quality inspectors were given a list of tasks and asked to identify those that were
associated with quality control problems. Only 25% of all tasks were ergonomically demanding, but
these generated 50% of all quality defects. Almost 40% of the faults found in the disassembly exercise
arose from the ergonomically demanding tasks. Eklund estimated that the risk of quality deficiencies
was almost 3 times as large for the ergonomically demanding tasks as for the other tasks. ‘Difficult to do’
tasks accounted for most of the problems and psychologically demanding tasks the least. However, 66%
of tasks that had been identified as ergonomically demanding had some kind of quality deficiency. There
was evidence from interviews with workers that they would settle for imperfect results in order to avoid
physical discomfort or ‘pass-on’ uncompleted work or problems when under time pressure. Quality
could be improved, it was concluded, by redesigning problem tasks to reduce the ergonomic demands.
Kochan (1988) reviewed the implementation of advanced technology by car manufacturers in the USA,
Europe and Japan. Kochan argued that the implementation of
new technologies works best when it is integrated with the human resource function. In a graphic
example, he described how, on a visit to the most ‘high-tech’ US car assembly plant, he was shown a
room in which car door panels, sourced from external suppliers, were inspected for quality by lasers.
The suppliers used the same system, which enabled both parties to ensure high quality both when the
products left the supplier and when they arrived at the assembly plant. While visiting the US assembly
plant of a Japanese car manufacturer, Kochan asked to see the area where incoming door panels were
checked and was told that there was no such room.

Kochan concluded the following:

• Although GM invested $650 million in automating the Michigan plant, the quality and productivity
were barely superior to those of the old, almost completely non-automated Massachusetts plant.

• The NUMMI plant, with moderate automation but revamped management style and human resource
strategy, took 60% of the time to produce cars with 60% of the defects.

• NUMMI was unionized whereas Nissan and Honda were not. Unionization does not seem to be a
barrier to productivity and quality.