Environmental ergonomics: a review of principles, methods and models

A review of the principles, methods and models used in environmental ergonomics is provided in terms of the effects of heat and cold, vibration, noise and light on the health, comfort and performance of people. Environmental ergonomics is an integral part of the discipline of ergonomics and should be viewed and practised from that perspective. Humans do not respond to the environment in a way monotonically related to direct measures of the physical environment. There are human characteristics which determine human sensitivities and responses. Practical methods for assessing responses to individual environmental components are presented as well as responses to ‘total’ environments and current and proposed International Standards concerned with the ergonomics of the physical environment.     

The human factors section of Bisra, 1950-1964. (The corporate laboratories, British steel corporation)

This article relates the beginning of ergonomics research at Bisra and how it subsequently evolved. Examples are given of experiments undertaken by the Human Factors Section to solve problems relating to the steel industry. A future article will deal with the human factors work at Bisra from 1964–1971.     

Difficulties in Quantifying Financial Losses that Could Be Reduced by Ergonomic Solutions

There is currently a significant amount of discussion regarding new ways to insert ergonomics into the business community through adding financial benefits; however, analysis must be performed to justify this type of investment. Occupational problems that could be reduced by ergonomics solutions can be expressed as financial losses. Although the impact and importance of these losses are high, the difficulties in their quantification prevent adequate cost‐benefit analysis. This article aims to document evidence of the difficulties encountered when quantifying the financial losses that are caused by problems that could be reduced by ergonomic solutions. In this study, we performed a literature review concerning the financial costs related to occupational problems from the perspective of ergonomics. The results indicate that losses that occur mainly concern the productivity of the working process or the workers. The chief barriers documented in the scientific literature are the information cost, the multifactorial nature of the problem, the absence of information, and the methods of measurement. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Ergonomics in industrially developing countries: does its application differ from that in industrially advanced countries?

Demographic characteristics of industrially developing countries (IDCs) and some comparisons with industrially advanced countries (IACs), particularly those aspects relevant to ergonomics, are presented. The majority of IDC populations are engaged in subsistence agriculture (the “informal” sector) and consideration is given to the scope for ergonomics interventions, aimed primarily at raising productivity to alleviate the poverty suffered by rural families. Ergonomics issues prevalent in the “formal” sector are also discussed and the importance of finding simple, low-cost solutions through participatory approaches emphasised. The possible contributions of ergonomics to alleviating problems common to both sectors, such as transport, are also indicated and attention is drawn to the difficulties of applying formal standards. The improvement of living and working conditions from incorporating an ergonomics approach into the sustainable livelihoods model, by enhancing human capital, is described in the context of the other livelihood assets. This demonstrates the importance of the cultural dimension for the successful delivery of ergonomics benefits. The application of ergonomics differs between IDCs and IACs particularly through the limited infrastructure in IDCs to support ergonomics activity and interventions. This broaches the different contributions that can be made by ergonomics and occupational health practitioners and implies the need for closer collaboration between these professions.     

Ergonomics and sustainability: towards an embrace of complexity and emergence

Technology offers a promising route to a sustainable future, and ergonomics can serve a vital role. The argument of this article is that the lasting success of sustainability initiatives in ergonomics hinges on an examination of ergonomics’ own epistemology and ethics. The epistemology of ergonomics is fundamentally empiricist and positivist. This places practical constraints on its ability to address important issues such as sustainability, emergence and complexity. The implicit ethical position of ergonomics is one of neutrality, and its positivist epistemology generally puts value-laden questions outside the parameters of what it sees as scientific practice. We argue, by contrast, that a discipline that deals with both technology and human beings cannot avoid engaging with questions of complexity and emergence and seeking innovative ways of addressing these issues.

Practitioner Summary: Ergonomics has largely modelled its research on a reductive science, studying parts and problems to fix. In sustainability efforts, this can lead to mere local adaptations with a negative effect on global sustainability. Ergonomics must consider quality of life globally, appreciating complexity and emergent effects of local relationships.     

A Review of Alarm System Design for Advanced Control Rooms of Nuclear Power Plants

Alarm systems are designed to provide cues to make operators aware of an operational problem, so that mitigation actions can be taken. New technologies are enabling innovative designs of alarm systems for safety-critical systems. To help better design alarm systems in advanced control rooms of nuclear power plants (NPPs), recent researches on alarm system design in the NPP domain are reviewed from the following aspects: (1) functions of an alarm system and opportunities and challenges of new technologies; (2) effects of alarm floods and different alarm management methods; (3) visual presentation of alarm information; (4) evaluation criteria for alarm systems. Through the comprehensive literature review, this article proposes research topics related to human factors and ergonomics that are worth studying in advanced alarm systems of NPPs.     

A method for integrating ergonomics analysis into maintainability design in a virtual environment

Designers must consider human factors/ergonomics when making decisions from the perspective of maintainability. As an important aspect of maintainability, maintenance space should be made adequate at the design stage to achieve a convenient maintenance process. A maintenance space evaluation method that considers ergonomics is proposed in this study. By comparing free swept volumes and constrained swept volumes in a virtual environment, maintenance space could be evaluated quantitatively and objectively. The results of the evaluation are obtained by combining the principles of ergonomics and maintainability. These results can help designers improve product design such that it fits ergonomics and maintainability requirements. A case study is introduced at the end of this paper to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method in efficiently evaluating the maintenance space based on the layout design of the product components in the design stage.Relevant to industryFor a large number of disasters caused by human errors in current industry, the result of this study contributes a guide to fully consider human factors in maintainability design through virtual environment and is beneficial to designers and engineers of industrial application fields.     

Defining a taxonomy of output modalities from an HCI perspective

The paper addresses an issue that must be resolved to produce a scientifically sound and practically useful reference model for intelligent multimedia presentation systems (IMP systems), namely that of providing, from the point of view of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), a systematic understanding of the types of output information to be presented by IMP systems. The term ‘medium’, as it is used in the context of multimedia systems, is too coarse-grained for distinguishing between different types of output information. The paper introduces the notion of (representational) ‘modalities’ to enable sufficiently fine-grained distinctions to be made. For the term itself to be meaningful, ‘multimodal’ presentations must be composed of unimodal representations. In the approach presented, unimodal representations are defined from a small number of basic properties whose combinations specify the ‘generic’ level of a taxonomy of unimodal output modalities. Additional basic property distinctions serve to generate the more fine-grained ‘atomic’ and ‘sub-atomic’ levels in a hierarchical fashion. The taxonomy is set up with the aim of satisfying four basic requirements, viz. completeness, orthogonality, relevance and intuitiveness. A concluding discussion illustrates the practical use of the taxonomy.     

Is the background knowledge of ergonomists important if ergonomics is to succeed within a simultaneous engineering (SE) environment?

Successful implementation of simultaneous engineering (SE) depends upon a number of factors. Meaningful communication among the team members is one factor. While most members on the SE multidisciplinary team have a common foundation, engineering, it is generally the ergonomist who lacks such background and becomes the weakest member of the team. Instead of being a problem solver, he/she is frequently treated as an irrelevant element in the scheme of things. This paper shows that simple ergonomic recommendations for product design could result in economically undesirable consequences for the manufacturer. Therefore, the ergonomist on the SE team must understand and consider the economic and technical impact of his/her recommendations on consumer product manufacturing and, in consultation with the engineering designer and process engineer, determine the best way to implement them. This obviously requires a thorough understanding of manufacturing and the adoption of an interdisciplinary role on the part of ergonomists. Furthermore, discussions involving the significance and importance of ergonomics should be carried out in forums primary to manufacturing (Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Institution of Production Engineers, Journals of Design and Manufacturing, etc.) and process engineers so that the main objective — consideration of ergonomics in product manufacture — may be achieved cost effectively.

Relevance to industry

Successful implementation of simultaneous engineering should lead to usable and reliable products that can be made easily, quickly, efficiently, and economically. Consideration of ergonomic design guidelines is essential in order to manufacture such products. Therefore, for market success, manufacturers must ensure that ergonomists participating in multidisciplinary SE design teams have background in both design and manufacturing technology.     

Modeling the customer in electronic commerce

This paper reviews interface design of web pages for e-commerce. Different tasks in e-commerce are contrasted. A systems model is used to illustrate the information flow between three subsystems in e-commerce: store environment, customer, and web technology. A customer makes several decisions: to enter the store, to navigate, to purchase, to pay, and to keep the merchandize. This artificial environment must be designed so that it can support customer decision-making. To retain customers it must be pleasing and fun, and create a task with natural flow. Customers have different needs, competence and motivation, which affect decision-making. It may therefore be important to customize the design of the e-store environment. Future ergonomics research will have to investigate perceptual aspects, such as presentation of merchandize, and cognitive issues, such as product search and navigation, as well as decision making while considering various economic parameters. Five theories on e-commerce research are presented.     

A discussion of simultaneous engineering and the manufacturing supply chain, from an ergonomics perspective

This paper discusses some of the ergonomics issues involved in Simultaneous Engineering from the perspective of supply chains. To be competitive in future markets, manufacturing companies must make greater use of the expertise and knowledge that is available from outside the company. This paper discusses some of the ergonomics issues involved in Simultaneous Engineering from the perspective of supply chains. It outlines some of the generic attributes of supply chains, and discusses some concepts of federated control systems as applied to supply chains. The implications of these for information flows and the management of distributed knowledge are then discussed. Most of this knowledge is human knowledge; consequently, the structure of supply chain teams is then discussed. Finally, some of the support requirements for such teams are listed, making the link to current ergonomics knowledge. Relevance to industry

The paper discusses some of the deeper issues in the use and operation of supply chains for product introduction, looking particularly at the control and information-handling aspects from an ergonomics viewpoint. It also discusses the organisational aspects of operating such supply chains, discussing the infrastuctural issues of expertise, training, and job support necessary for efficient, effective control of these supply chains.     

Putting mind and body back together: A human-systems approach to the integration of the physical and cognitive dimensions of task design and operations

As human factors and ergonomics professionals we should be considering the total context within which the person must operate when performing a task, providing a service, or using a product. We have traditionally thought of the person as having a cognitive system and a physical system and much of our scientific literature has been myopically focused on one or the other of these systems while, in general, totally ignoring the other. However, contemporary efforts have begun to recognize the rich interactions occurring between these systems that can have a profound influence on performance and dictate overall system output. In addition, modern efforts are beginning to appreciate the many interactions between the various elements of the environment that can influence the components of the human systems. The next level of sophistication in the practice of human factors and ergonomics must begin to consider the totality of the human-system behavior and performance and must consider systems design interactions which result from these collective effects. Only then will we be able to truly optimize systems for human use.     

Green ergonomics: definition and scope

This paper demonstrates that the goals of ergonomics (i.e. effectiveness, efficiency, health, safety and usability) are closely aligned with the goals of design for environmental sustainability. In this paper, the term ‘green ergonomics’ is conceptualised to specifically describe ergonomics interventions with a pro-nature emphasis. Green ergonomics is focused on the bi-directional connections between human systems and nature. This involves looking at (1) how ergonomics design and evaluation might be used to conserve, preserve, and restore nature and (2) how ecosystem services might be harnessed to facilitate the improved wellbeing and effectiveness of human systems. The paper proposes the scope of green ergonomics based on these bi-directional relationships in the areas of the design of low resource systems and products, the design of green jobs, and the design for behaviour change. Suggestions for further work in the green ergonomics domain are also made.

Practitioner Summary: Given the enormous environmental challenges facing modern industrial society, this paper encourages ergonomics science to embrace a pro-nature understanding of work design and research. This paper sets out the role for green ergonomics based on an appreciation of the human–nature connections that have been integrated with our understanding of ergonomics science and practice.     

A combined field and laboratory investigation for the effective application of ergonomics in situ

Despite extensive research on musculoskeletal disorders associated with manual labour, the enormity of the problems experienced in industry remains. Recognizing the importance of applying the science of ergonomics, the focus of this paper was to highlight the substantial difference between conducting rigorous controlled research in the laboratory and the less controlled, but more realistic research within the working environment. Our proposal is not to use one or the other methodology, but rather to combine basic assessments made in situ with rigorous laboratory experimentation investigating human responses both pre- and post-intervention, and finally to go back into the field to test the efficacy of the proposed ergonomics intervention. The combined ‘field–lab–field’ format presented in this paper is based on research conducted in an industrially developing country, and it is argued that this is the most likely means of assuring that the application of rigorous ergonomics theory will improve the poor working conditions so evident in developing regions.     

Ergonomics of electronic mail address systems: related literature review and survey of users

The paper reviews the cognitive ergonomics literature related to electronic mail (e-mail) address design. Based on this information, a survey of 160 users of current e-mail address system was conducted. The aim was to obtain information on likes, dislikes and difficulties associated with e-mail address and to obtain users' suggestions and input for improving the current e-mail address system. The survey results indicated that users want an improved e-mail address system with regard to shorter length, useful information and appropriate presentation of information.     

Cognitive ergonomics, socio-technical systems, and the impact of healthcare information technologies

The United States healthcare system is transitioning from paper-based to computer-based systems. In this process, it is vitally important to focus on optimizing the role of human factors in systems design. This review examines a wide range of cognitive ergonomics and socio-technical systems issues that impact the successful implementation of healthcare information technologies (HIT). We review evidence on the impact of HIT on medication errors, electronic health records and clinical support, copying clinical exams and notes, computerized-provider order entry and clinical decision support system, and bar-code medication administration systems. We examine research on barriers to successful HIT implementation and also on user workarounds of systems’ limitations. The review concludes by summarizing a series of important human factors design considerations that must be considered for successful systems implementation. This information is presented in a manner that should allow HIT system designers and implementers to readily incorporate these principles into their future developments.Relevance to industry: Evidence from a comprehensive review of the impact of HIT on a wide variety of important healthcare issues is presented and a series of human factors design considerations that are critical to successful HIT systems design is summarized.     

Ergonomic issues in quality control

This paper explores the characteristics of the quality control function with a focus on ergonomics design to the production system. The objective is to provide a set of design attributes to aid in the work environment which enhances the quality control function. It is important to recognize the operator as being an important part of the man/machine interface. According to Biberman, “The human part of the system deserves special attention: As a critical part of any man/machine system, the human operator receives information, processes it, and takes some specific action upon the system” (1973, p. 92). The thought of quality usually forms a mental picture consisting of uniformity, the conformity to an established standard, or a degree of consistence in production. Another definition is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its abilities to satisfy a given need (Stevens 1981).     

The promises and problems of ergonomics application in the People's Republic of China

Ergonomics or human factors, as an applied science concerning the design of interfaces between man, machine and the working environment, has shown its great capacities and potentials for improving working conditions and efficiency during its applications in most industrially developed countries (IC). As a means of improving the economy, industrialisation has been initiated in many industrially developing countries (DC). Knowledge and technology available in ICs have been transferred to DCs in order to increase the process of industrialisation. Ergonomics as a western discipline has also been transferred to many DCs during the technology transfer process. As an example of the transfer and development of ergonomics in industrially developing countries, this paper examines the development of ergonomics and its various areas of application in the People's Republic of China. After reviewing the current ergonomics situation and its applications in China from various points of view — i e, from organisation, research, education and industrial application — promises and problems associatd with the development of this new area of science are discussed.     

Performing ergonomics analyses through virtual interactive design: Validity and reliability assessment

Virtual interactive design methodology was initially proposed as an integrated environment for digital human model–based ergonomics analysis of human–machine interactions, which uses a motion capture system and virtual environment to realize task simulation. The validity and reliability of this analysis methodology has not been systematically studied. In this article, potential errors are first investigated based on the technology used in the system structure and work process; then, three experimental integration levels are proposed to use different resources for creating manikin postures. Validity and reliability to use this integrated environment for static ergonomics analysis are then assessed by comparing the ergonomics analysis outputs achieved based on the three integration levels. The results indicate that the reliability of this methodology is good; however, the validity of the integrated system is affected by the limitation of the virtual environment used in the testing. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

基于H-anim的数字化人机设计研究*

为实现数字化人机工程,引入数字化人体模型来统一表达人机测量尺度、肢体动作特征和作业空间范围等人机要素,并提出基于H-anim的数字化人体建模方法,结合VRML原型节点建立了三维的,具有真实感的人体尺寸模型,利用EAI技术仿真人体动作行为。最后,以机床为对象,构建了计算机辅助人机设计系统,实现了操作空间的可见性、可及性与宜人性人机评价。