Ergonomics and Human Factors: Enhancing Workplaces

Ergonomics and Human Factors Enhancing Workplaces

Ergonomics and Human Factors Enhancing Workplaces

Purnima Embranthiri

Ergonomics and Human Factors

Enhancing Workplaces

Purnima Embranthiri

ISBN - 9789361524905

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Preface

The subject of human factors is not formally taught, and most people are not aware of them. Yet human factors are the most important keys in building relationships, teamwork, and motivation. This book discusses key concepts, tools, and techniques of human factors and their role in business and management.

Content

Chapter 1. Ergonomics And Human Factors 1

1.1 Introduction 1

1.2 What is human factors and ergonomics 2

1.3 What ergonomics means to business 3

1.4 The emergence of Human Factors 8

1.5 Summary 12

1.6 Exercise 12

References 12

Figure Resoure 13

Chapter 2. Ergonomics 14

2.1 The Nature and Aims of Ergonomics 14

2.2 Ergonomics and Related Disciplines 17

2.3 Aims of Ergonomics 18

2.4 Principles of ergonomics 21

2.5 How will an ergonomics program help your organization? 28

2.6 Ergonomics Problems 28

2.7 Summary 29

2.8 Exercise 29

References 30

Figure Resoure 30

Chapter 3. The Emergence of Human Factors 31

3.1 Introduction 31

3.2 History and its emergence 31

3.3 Fundamentals of human factors 35

3.4 Rail systems ergonomics/human factors 40

3.5 Brief History of the Systems Approach and Human Factors Engineering 45

3.6 Summary 48

3.7 Exercise 49

References 49

Figure Resoure 50

Chapter 4. Analysis Of Activities, Tasks, And Work Systems 51

4.1 Introduction 51

4.2 Some Characteristics of Work Analyses 52

4.3 The Task or the Activity? 54

4.4 The activity, the evidence, and the performance 57

4.5 Individual or Collective Work? 60

4.6 Ergonomics and Standardization 62

4.7 Summary 69

4.8 Exercise 69

References 69

Figure Resource 70

Chapter 5. Human Factors and Ergonomics Methods 71

5.1 Introduction 71

5.2 Physiological method 71

5.3 Psychophysiological Methods 75

5.4 Behavioral and Cognitive Methods 85

5.5 Team Methods 92

5.6 Environmental Methods 100

5.7 Summary 108

5.8 Exercise 108

References 108

Figure Resource 109

Chapter 6. Work Organization 110

6.1 Introduction 110

6.2 Work Organization 111

6.3 Balance Theory of Job Design 111

6.4 Element of The Work System 113

6.5 Causes of Inefficient Use of Technology 114

6.6 From the Task to the Design of Socio-Technical Systems 115

6.7 Workers’ Participation 119

6.8 New forms of work organization 120

6.9 Balanced work system Balanced organization 124

6.10 Summary 127

6.11 Exercise 127

References 128

Figure Resource 128

Chapter 7. Human Factors and Team Dynamics in Project Management 129

7.1 Introduction 129

7.2 Key Elements of Team Performance 133

7.3 Defining content 133

7.4 Creating content 135

7.5 Process 138

7.6 Behavior 154

7.7 Summary 165

7.8 Exercise 166

References 166

Figure Resource 166

Chapter 8. Hearts and Minds of Human Factors 167

8.1 Introduction 167

8.2 Intellectual and Emotional Needs of Motivation 167

8.3 Managing The Mind And Emotions In Conflict 170

8.4 How Intellectual And Emotional Needs Are Communicated 176

8.5 Summary 180

8.6 Exercise 180

References 180

Figure Resource 181

Chapter 9. Management Skills and Human Factors 182

9.1 Introduction 182

9.2 Leadership, vision, and strategic direction 182

9.3 Supply chain integration 184

9.4 Barriers to Integration 185

9.5 Management skills 186

9.6 Risk and innovation 187

9.7 Human factors and skills 188

9.8 Support 189

9.9 Learning and redirection 190

9.10 Summary 190

9.11 Exercise 190

References 191

Figure Resource 191

Chapter 10. Human Factor Related Challenges 192

10.1 Introduction 192

10.2 Human Factors and Construction Marketing Research 193

10.3 Human Factor Related Challenges of Construction Business Marketing 194

10.4 Summary 197

10.5 Exercise 197

References 197

Figure Resource 198

Glossary 199

Index 201

Chapter 1. Ergonomics And Human Factors

1.1 Introduction

Over the last 60 years, human factors, a term that is used here synonymously with ergonomics [and denoted as human factors ergonomics (HFE)], has been evolving as a unique and independent discipline that focuses on the nature of human–artifact interactions, viewed from the unified perspective of the science, engineering, design, technology, and management of human-compatible systems, including a variety of natural and artificial products, processes, and living environments. The various dimensions of such defined ergonomics discipline are shown in Figure 1.1. The International Ergonomics Association (IEA, 2003) defines ergonomics (or human factors) as the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of the interactions among humans and other elements of a system and the profession that applies theory, principles, data, and methods to design to optimize human well-being and overall system performance. Human factors professionals contribute to the design and evaluation of tasks, jobs, products, environments, and systems to make them compatible with people’s needs, abilities, and limitations. The ergonomics discipline promotes a holistic, human-centered approach to work systems design that considers the physical, cognitive, social, organizational, environmental, and other relevant factors.

Fig 1.1: Disciplines of ergonomics

1.2 What is human factors and ergonomics

Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) apply psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. The goal of human factors is to reduce human error, increase productivity, and enhance safety and comfort with a specific focus on the interaction between the human and the thing of interest.

The field combines numerous disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, engineering, biomechanics, industrial design, physiology, anthropometry, interaction design, visual design, user experience, and user interface design. In research, human factors employ the scientific method to study human behavior so that the resultant data may be applied to the four primary goals. In essence, it is the study of designing equipment, devices, and processes that fit the human body and its cognitive abilities. The two terms human factors and ergonomics are essentially synonymous.

The International Ergonomics Association defines ergonomics or human factors as follows:

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 to optimize human well-being and overall system performance.

This definition includes three interrelated aspects that must be considered: the job, the individual, and the organization:

•The job: including areas such as the nature of the task, workload, the working environment, the design of displays and controls, and the role of procedures. Tasks should be designed following ergonomic principles to take account of both human limitations and strengths. This includes matching the job to the physical and mental strengths and limitations of people. Mental aspects would include perceptual, attentional, and decision-making requirements.

•The individual: including his/her competence, skills, personality, attitude, and risk perception. Individual characteristics influence behavior in complex ways. Some characteristics such as personality are fixed; others such as skills and attitudes may be changed or enhanced.

•The organization: including work patterns, the culture of the workplace, resources, communications, leadership, and so on. Such factors are often overlooked during the design of jobs but significantly influence individual and group behavior.

In other words, human factors are concerned with what people are being asked to do (the task and its characteristics), who is doing it (the individual and their competence), and where they are working (the organization and its attributes), all of which are influenced by the wider societal concern, both local and national.

Human factors interventions will not be effective if they consider these aspects in isolation. The scope of what we mean by human factors includes organizational systems and is considerably broader than traditional views of human factors/ergonomics. Human factors can, and should, be included within a good safety management system and so can be examined in a similar way to any other risk control system.

Human factors are employed to fulfill the goals of occupational health and safety and productivity. It is relevant in designing such things as safe furniture and easy-to-use interfaces to machines and equipment. Proper ergonomic design is necessary to prevent repetitive strain injuries and other musculoskeletal disorders, which can develop over time and lead to long-term disability. Human factors and ergonomics are concerned with the fit between the user, equipment, and environment or fitting a job to a person. It accounts for the user’s capabilities and limitations in seeking to ensure that tasks, functions, information, and the environment suit that user.

To assess the fit between a person and the used technology, human factors specialists or ergonomists consider the job (activity) being done and the demands on the user; the equipment used (its size, shape, and how appropriate it is for the task), and the information used (how it is presented, accessed, and changed). Ergonomics draws on many disciplines in its study of humans and their environments, including anthropometry, biomechanics, mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, industrial design, information design, kinesiology, physiology, cognitive psychology, industrial and organizational psychology, and space psychology.

1.3 What ergonomics means to business

If you think safety’s expensive, try having an accident … Managing human failures is essential to prevent major accidents, occupational accidents, and ill health, all of which can cost businesses money, reputation, and potentially their continued existence.

Successful businesses achieve high productivity and quality while ensuring health and safety. Good technology combined with the best work systems can help to achieve these goals. The best work systems are based on having a skilled workforce with well-designed jobs appropriate to individuals’ abilities.

The influence of biological, psychological, and organizational factors on an individual at work can affect their health and safety, but it also affects their efficiency and productivity. For example, if:

•Someone needs to exert a large proportion of their strength to complete a task they are more likely to suffer injury and carry out the task inefficiently – possibly causing damage to the product and tools; or

•The mental demands of a task are too high, perhaps involving diagnosing faults under significant time pressures then there can be both a health issue for the employee but also a quality and possibly safety issue for the production line, process, and plant; or

•Individuals have very limited scope for determining how to do their job then they may lack motivation and job satisfaction and be less effective at work.

Individuals have a wide range of abilities and limitations. A Human Factors (or Ergonomics) approach focuses on how to make the best use of these capabilities: by designing jobs and equipment which are fit for people. This not only improves their health and safety but often ensures a better managed, more effective organization.

Management can use some direction in response to these issues. As a safety director or ergonomics consultant to any company, you play a role in providing management and the board with an understanding of the cost benefits achieved through ergonomics. Good news travels up the corporate ladder very rapidly. Everyone in the company gets excited about a large new product sale, a new product coming to market, or the next best widget. However, when the news is not so good, the filters are in place to keep those in power from understanding the real truths until sometimes it is too late. That can often be the case with workplace injuries and illnesses.

To understand fully how ergonomics can benefit a business, we need to understand knowledge management, intellectual and human capital, and some of the other economic buzz words being used today that are very well applied to ergonomics.

1.3.1 Explanation of Economics

Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services regarding the trade-offs between competing alternatives as observed through measurable quantities such as input, price, and output. The field of economics comprises some potentially irreconcilable theories about production and distribution systems, but as a general rule, economists study human behavior and welfare as a relationship between ends socially required and scarce means that have alternative uses.

In the late 20th century, one of the areas of study that produced a change in economic thinking was examining a risk-based rather than a price-based model. The study of risk, which viewed variations in price over time as more important than the actual price, has been influential. This particularly applies to financial economics in which risk-return trade-offs are the crucial decisions to be made.

Ergonomics similarly deals with risk-return trade-offs. As for ergonomics engineering consultants, we mitigate risk by engineering out a problem. By removing the risk, we end the potential for additional costs and labor problems and manage and control the expenditure for the solution. Risk can be transferred through means such as insurance coverage. With this method, you are paying the insurance company to assume the risk, but you still pay.

Would you be happy to spend £10,000 on a solution to prevent a £100,000 back injury? Would you spend £400,000 on a capital improvement on an assembly line to prevent a recall of insurmountable pounds?

1.3.2 Knowledge management

Now let’s move on to knowledge management and understand where this fits into the picture. Knowledge management is a business activity with two primary aspects:

1. Treating the knowledge component of business activities as an explicit concern of business reflected in strategy, policy, and practice at all levels of the organization. Relating this to ergonomics, you develop an ergonomics process that fits your organization and includes the written goals, objectives, policies, and procedures for the organization to understand. This takes into consideration the experience and knowledge of your employees as contributors.

2. Making a direct connection between an organization’s intellectual assets, both explicit (which can be articulated in language and transmitted among individuals) and tacit (personal know-how). In ergonomics, this can be viewed as including employees in the team to identify and assist in developing solutions to problems in the workplace.

In traditional perceptions of the role of knowledge in business organizations, tacit knowledge is often viewed as the real key to getting things done and creating new value. (Utilising the knowledge base of employees, risks can be mitigated through assessment, identification, and reduction before the injury, labor, and production issues.)

A significant element of the business community also views knowledge management as a natural extension of business process reengineering, a fact underscored by the March 1997 announcement that John Wiley’s Business Change and Reengineering had been retitled Knowledge and Process Management.

Now that we have a definition of knowledge management, why do we need it? Some of the experts list the following reasons:

•Marketplaces are increasingly competitive, and the rate of innovation is rising (reduce the costs of doing business and put additional money into innovative ideas that rise above the competition for greater market share)

•Reductions in staffing create a need to replace informal knowledge with formal methods (get those job descriptions updated and formally assess jobs to reduce risk factors and hidden problems)

•Competitive pressures reduce the size of the workforce that holds valuable business knowledge (we have an aging workforce that is expected to perform more tasks. Here is a real need for ergonomics)

•The amount of time available to experience and acquire knowledge has diminished (make time and focus on getting people trained in ergonomics to raise the competency bar)

•Workplace injuries, early retirements, and increasing workforce mobility lead to loss of knowledge (by applying ergonomics processes, senior employees might work longer and mentor new hires. By transferring their experiences and nuances of jobs to new hires and training the younger workforce, senior employees reduce the formal training time necessary and prevent injuries and production losses)

As these issues show, there is a recognition that information and knowledge are corporate assets and that businesses need strategies, policies, and tools to manage those assets. We also need to understand that what was deemed a cost of doing business in the past may instead be a source of savings or profit manageable through ergonomic processes.

The need to manage knowledge seems obvious, and discussions of intellectual capital have proliferated, but few businesses have acted on that understanding. Companies have taken action (and a growing number are doing so), implementations of knowledge management may range from technology-driven methods of accessing, controlling, and delivering information to massive efforts to foster changes in corporate cultures for cost reductions.

An engineering ergonomics consultant can foster continuous improvement in any organization by using science to change a corporate culture through education and knowledge transfer. Training an organization’s engineering staff in applied ergonomics for processes, product design, design for manufacturing and assembly, equipment design and selection, supply chain management, facility environments, and maintenance can produce various benefits. Other personnel such as health, safety, maintenance, purchasing, and production employees need to be trained after the engineers. This allows a natural, logical chain of events whereby an employee identifies an ergonomic risk factor, and the engineer knows to understand and develop the solution to reduce or eliminate the hazard. Otherwise, labor and management may have a real schism when a risk is found, and no one can change it.

The ability to manage ergonomics knowledge represents one of the primary opportunities for achieving substantial savings, significant improvements in human performance, and competitive advantage.

Don’t think this is just about the large companies with thousands of employees. Small and midsize companies need formal approaches to knowledge management even more because they don’t have the market leverage, inertia, and resources that big companies do. They have to be much more flexible, more responsive and make better decisions to reduce costs because even small mistakes can be fatal.

1.3.3 Intellectual or human capital

Human capital is a way of defining and categorizing peoples’ skills and abilities used in employment and otherwise contributing to the economy. Some economic theories refer to it simply as labor, one of three factors of production, and consider it an easily interchangeable commodity. Human capital is like the physical means of production, e.g., factories and machines: an individual can invest in it (through education, training, medical treatment), and his/her income depends partly on the rate of return on the human capital he/she owns. Thus, human capital is a stock of assets a person owns. It allows that person to receive a flow of income, which is like interest earned.

Intellectual capital represents the knowledge assets of an organization in terms of data, information, and wisdom and the tools that augment the use of this information/knowledge.

An organization’s intellectual capital may be divided into three elements that can be measured and targeted for investment: human capital, structural capital, and customer capital.

It is also defined as the sum of everything the people of an organization know, which can be converted into value or formalized, captured, and leveraged to produce a higher-valued asset. This translates to the value of all the knowledge held in the minds and experience of employees. Thus, intellectual and human capital are interchangeable and necessary for success.

During the year 2000, intellectual capital accounted for over one-tenth of the U.S. gross domestic product, or $1 trillion. A group called KLM Inc. has divided intellectual capital into seven areas; their seven areas are listed with the ergonomics relationship in parenthesis:

The brand is an ongoing identity conveying the values of the enterprise, its products and services, and ultimately its role in the customer’s or consumer’s lifestyle. (With an ergonomics process, a company is known as one that cares about their employees and their customers. Thinking, time and money went into the development and manufacturing or service that the brand offers. Recalls can seriously hurt and create unnecessary havoc to a brand.)

Intellectual property and goodwill include trademarks, patents, licenses, trade secrets, and intellectual property strategies. (Ergonomics promotes thought processes within the entire employee base and throughout the organization. Continuous improvement through ergonomics may lead to additional intellectual property gains.)

The active intelligence, energy, and creativity of an organization include its knowledge, know-how, trade secrets, information, data, and the ability to innovate and take products and services to the marketplace. (Ergonomics allows both industrial and service companies to create innovative solutions and produce products that are more intuitive and fit the user.)

Corporate culture represents an organization’s ways of doing business, its rituals, and its practices. (Ergonomics promotes best practices within the organization and allows continuous improvement to be developed within the fabric of any company.)

The people bring their abilities, talents, and relationships. (Ergonomics increases the intellectual property of the employees and the value of the company through additional corporate assets.)

The experience and history of the organization and its corporate memory are the next assets. (With an ergonomics process, employees can remain working longer and impart knowledge learned to younger or newer employees)

Intellectual materials, or the work product of the day, represent the new capital used to create new wealth. (Ergonomics allows for production and service facilities to be error-free and without quality issues. The work product of today will not be recalled tomorrow.)

In a strong and successful ergonomics process, the entire organization is trained to identify problems and report issues before injury or illness.

In a successful ergonomics process, the employees are not blamed for injuries and waste, but the jobs themselves are assessed and changed when needed. Employees are one of the most expensive and yet the greatest asset to any organization. They develop a set of skills acquired on the job through training and experience, which increase that employee’s value in the marketplace. By maintaining the employees’ intellectual capital, we raise the value of a company.

The ergonomics consultant can provide the roadmap to cost reduction by imparting knowledge and increasing the intellectual capital for all employees. By using intellectual capital to reduce costs, we can maintain experienced employees rather than the revolving door syndrome, create solutions to jobs that produce risk factors to the human body, understand upstream design before cutting a piece of steel in the plant, train office employees in the proper adjustability of their equipment, educate healthcare workers in proper lifting techniques, take warehousing and supply chains and design-in solutions while designing out problems. These are just some examples of applied ergonomics.

There is a financial value that human innovations, inventions, and intelligence bring to a business enterprise. This is an objective measurement, and an ergonomics consultant can cost justify the benefits and savings to any organization. Let’s begin to educate and share the results of strong ergonomics processes and the financial benefits it brings to any organization.

No longer do all of a company’s costs fall legitimately into the cost of doing business category. The longer the ergonomics results continue to be made public, the better the data will become, and the more economics can be built around an ergonomics process.

1.4 The emergence of Human Factors

In the past three decades, business management has dramatically changed. Priority 1970, management was predominantly top-down, rules-based, and autocratic. A militaristic philosophy was common. This changed as companies realized that creativity and discretionary performance suffered when power was restricted to the top few. In the 1980s, team-based, values-driven organizations appeared. More employee participative philosophies were