Macroergonomics intervention programs: Recommendations for their design and implementation

The purpose of this article is twofold: 1) to consider the intervention programs that emerged before ergonomic research, and 2) to develop a methodology for design and implementation of a macroergonomics intervention program in a manufacturing organization. A design that has been used is shown, which allows subsequent specialists' actions to achieve the expected results and avoid mistakes during implementation. A case study in the shoe industry is used to validate the procedure and illustrate the results, which include improvement in the quality of work processes (from 6.14% to 1.54% defects) and in quality of work life (from 58.03% to 93.33%). The conclusions highlight the need to carry out intervention programs relating to both micro and macro levels to achieve optimization of work systems. The recent increase in research activity in this area and the positive results encourage the future development of such macroergonomics intervention programs. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.