IELM 6030
Ergonomics
2010-2011 Second Semester
Instructor: Calvin Or
Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems
Engineering
The University of Hong Kong
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A little about me …
• Calvin Or
• Assistant Professor, Dept of IMSE
• BEng., Industrial Engineering & Engineering Management
• MSc, Industrial Engineering
• PhD, Industrial & Systems Engineering
Contact Information
– Tel: 2859-2587
– Email: klor@hku.hk
– Office hour: By appointment
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Course syllabus
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About my teaching and
class
• Teaching is about sharing knowledge and
facilitating learning
• Rote learning is not encouraged
• My style
– Participation … there are no right and wrong answers;
letting you know the fact and evidence
– Ask questions, challenging me is okay!
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My goals for this course
• Change the way you think about human factors and
ergonomics
• Change the way you think about product, process and
system design
• My hope is that you become completely intolerant of
design that does not incorporate human factors science
• My hope is that by the end of this class bad design will
jump out at you, and when it does, you will know how to
fix it.
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Take Away Messages…
• We know that performance, efficiency, safety and usability are
the result of the interaction between human (people), machine
(e.g., technology), and the system in which they work. Human
factors engineering helps you understand that interaction so
that you can better design systems to improve performance
and safety.…LEARN ABOUT IT!
• We have a set of tools, standards, guidelines and principles for
improving human performance, safety …USE & APPLY
THEM!
• We know that human factors engineering does improve
performance and safety …WHEN USED AND
IMPLEMENTED APPROPRIATELY.
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What is this discipline
really called?
• Human factors?
• Ergonomics?
• Human factors engineering?
• Human engineering
• Engineering psychology
• Cognitive engineering
• Human factors/Ergonomics = HFE
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What is Human
Factors/Ergonomics?
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What is Human
Factors/Ergonomics?
• Improving ‘fit’ between people and
products, equipment, facilities,
procedures, environments, and the
entire systems
• Understanding how work design
affects people
• Matching design to people’s
capabilities, limitations, needs
• Changing the organization, task,
technology and environment to
better fit to human (e.g., users)
• We probably cannot “change” the
human operators; but often times
training is used as the solution …
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What is Human
Factors/Ergonomics?
• HFE makes everything you touch better!
– iPhone, Mac/MS Windows, car, scalpels, laundry
baskets, street signs, airplane cockpits
• HFE is about making jobs better, including
your own
• HFE allows the successful implementation of
the other IE tools and methods you will learn
• HFE is about improving people’s lives
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What is Human
factors/Ergonomics?
International Ergonomics
Association (IEA) Definition
• 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. http://www.iea.cc/01_what/What%20is%20Ergonomics.html
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IEA continues…
• (1) Physical ergonomics; (2) Cognitive
ergonomics; (3) Organizational ergonomics
• (1) Physical ergonomics is concerned with
human anatomical, anthropometric, physiological
and biomechanical characteristics as they relate to
physical activity.
– Relevant topics include working postures, materials handling,
repetitive movements, work related musculoskeletal
disorders, workplace layout, safety and health.
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IEA continues…
• (2) Cognitive ergonomics is concerned with
mental processes, such as perception, memory,
reasoning, and motor response, as they affect
interactions among humans and other elements
of a system.
– Relevant topics include mental workload, decision-
making, skilled performance, human-computer
interaction, human reliability, work stress and training
as these may relate to human-system design.
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IEA continues…
• (3) Organizational ergonomics is concerned
with the optimization of sociotechnical systems,
including their organizational structures, policies,
and processes.
– Relevant topics include communication, crew resource
management, work design, design of working times,
teamwork, participatory design, community ergonomics,
cooperative work, new work paradigms, virtual
organizations, telework, and quality management.
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More on – What is it really?
• SCIENCE: Discovers and applies information
about human behavior, abilities, limitations and
other characteristics to the design of tools,
machines, systems, tasks, jobs, and
environments for productive, safe, comfortable
and effective human use
• PRACTICE: Designing the fit between people and
products, equipment, facilities, procedures and
environments
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If we put that all together….
Human factors/Ergonomics is the scientific
discipline concerned with designing
systems for the people who work in them
to promote performance, safety, health,
comfort, and satisfaction
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What are the objectives of
HFE?
• Reducing errors, fatigue, stress and
injuries at work, while at the same time…
• Improving productivity, performance, ease
of use, safety, health, comfort,
acceptance, job satisfaction, and quality of
life
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Can HFE really do all that?
• Yes because we focus on system
performance, and specifically human
performance
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What does HFE focus on
to meet the objectives?
• Designing systems to meet human
requirements
– Physical requirements (e.g. safe patient
transfer)
– Behavioral requirements (e.g. design of training
for CPOE, procedures for med admin)
– Psychosocial requirements (e.g. job control,
role ambiguity, job satisfaction)
– Cognitive requirements (e.g. decision support)
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How does HFE meet the
objectives?
• Identification of performance (i.e. safety or
quality) problems / solutions
• Analysis of performance (i.e. safety or
quality) problems
• Design of systems to support performance
& eliminate/reduce performance obstacles
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HFE model: A schematic representation of a
human-machine system
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Work System Model
(Carayon et al.,2006)
Work System Process Outcomes
Technology Organization
and Tools
Product Outcomes
Process Outcomes
Person PROCESSES
Employee &
Organizational
Tasks Outcomes
Environment
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What is a work system?
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What is a work system?
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What is a work system?
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Discussion of System
Model
• The elements on the left comprise any basic
work system.
• All of the elements interact with each other and
any change in one element (e.g. change in
lighting, work flow, technology) will affect the
other elements.
• If all of the elements are not designed to fit
together, there is a misfit.
• A misfit can lead to productivity, efficiency,
safety and quality problems.
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How does HFE fit into
Industrial Engineering?
• Industrial engineers are “people who
develop, design, manage, maintain, or
evaluate integrated systems of people,
equipment, materials, information, and
process.” (Modified from Institute of Industrial Engineers)
• HFE allows the other areas of IE to
execute.
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HFE thinking
(modified from Sanders and McCormick, 1993)
• Systems (e.g. machines or hospitals) need to be
designed for and to work with people
• Systems must be designed to accommodate the
range of users
• How systems are designed will influence human
behavior and therefore system performance
• Design needs to be evidence-based, not
“common sense” or designer driven
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HFE is NOT
• Applying checklists and guidelines
• Using oneself as a model for design
• Common sense
– Do highly trained fighter pilot have “common
sense”
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HFE Example
• An assembly-line worker had to
reach to an awkward location and
position a heavy component for
assembly. Toward the end of a shift,
after grabbing the component, he
felt a twinge of pain in his lower
back. A trip to the doctor revealed
that the worker had suffered a
ruptured disc, and he missed
several days of work. He filed a
lawsuit against the company for
requiring physical action that
endangered the lower back.
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HFE Example
• Examining a bottle of prescription
medicine, A 75-year-old man
was unable to read the tiny print
of the dosage instructions or
even the red-printed safety
warning beneath it.
• Ironically, a second difficulty
prevented him from potentially
encountering harm caused by
the first difficulty. He was unable
to exert the combination of fine
motor coordination and strength
to remove the “childproof” cap.
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More on HFE Example
Bad/Good Design?
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More on HFE Example
Bad/Good Design?
• Start looking around
for these “raised letter”
warnings and
instructions.
• Can you really be
expected to read that?
• What do you think if
an elderly who has
poor vision uses this
product?
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More on HFE Example
Bad/Good Design?
• Which control turns on
the fan?
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More on HFE Example
Bad/Good Design?
• They are controls of a car.
• What does these symbols mean?
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More on HFE Example
Bad/Good Design?
• Elevator control panels
First problem – when we got inside the elevator, I accidentally pressed the number instead of
the button. I’d had no problem with the buttons outside the elevator, and these were almost the
same, why make a mistake now? In the elevator lobby, the button labels were on the buttons
themselves, and there was nothing else to press; it’d be hard to make a mistake with those. But
inside, the button labels were (1) separate and round, just like the buttons, and (2) a higher
contrast with the background panel, and so caught my eye. A great example of the effect of
context on usage.
Second problem – I almost pressed the floor for 18 instead of 19. That’s easy to do, the labels
are closer to the button to the left than to the button on the right that they label.
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More on HFE Example
Bad/Good Design?
Infusion Pump
• Patients receive too much/too little drug due to
incorrect input?!
• http://www.avvo.com/legal-guides/ugc/april-
2010-fda-letter-to-pain-pump-manufacturers---
what-do-consumers-need-to-know
• http://www.nolo.com/legal-
encyclopedia/article-32523.html
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC
2464871/
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More on HFE Example
Bad/Good Design?
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See you next week.
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