HUMAN FACTORS ENGINEERING: AN OVERVIEW

Dr. D. Majumdar
Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences, DRDO.
Lucknow Road, Timarpur, Delhi - 110054
1. Historical Background
The inhuman working conditions of the early industrialization and the confidence in the
mechanical view of the world of the 19th century in the possibility of planning and creating
good conditions provoked the founding of a separate science discipline. Already in 1857,
Mr. Jastrzebowski from Poland proposed in the journal Nature and Industry to take care
of the scientific approach regarding the problems that are imposed by work and to create
a separate science in order to obtain from this science the best with the least efforts with
the highest satisfaction for the own and public welfare and by acting fair with regard to the
own conscience and others. He called this new scientific branch Human Engineering or
Ergonomics respectively. This name, however, was forgotten later.
Starting in the middle of the last century, many activities happened in the various countries
that dealt with a scientific view of human work. The predominant scientific view of the world
considered it feasible to transfer the rules of traditional physics to all phenomena in nature
and therefore also to human life. In the different European countries as well as in the USA, a
science was established, which in the German-speaking area is called Human Engineering
(in the Anglo-American language also referred to as human factors, or also called
ergonomics in the European countries).
In 1949, Murrell in England re-invented the coined word Ergonomics that had been
compounded from ergon = Work and nomos = rule, legitimacy. Subsequently, various
scientific organizations with the same denomination were founded in the European as well
as outer-European countries. In 1959, they were grouped under the roof of the
International Ergonomic Association (IEA).
2. Ergonomics and Human Engineering
There are different viewpoints regarding the subject of this special field. In the introduction
to his major work, W.E. Woodson wrote in 1981: Human Factors Engineering is the practice
of designing products so that the user can perform required use, operation, service, and
supportive tasks with a minimum of stress and a maximum of efficiency. He also
mentioned the term Ergonomics, which according to his viewpoint is generally used as a
synonym of Human Factor Engineering. The only tangible difference is the fact that
Human Factor Engineering is more common in the USA than in other countries. In 1981,
M. Helander, who had been the President of the IEA for a long period, wrote: Human factors
engineering aims at modifying work procedures and machinery by taking into account the
physical and psychological capabilities and limitations of human beings. He did mention
different denominations for this discipline, such as Engineering Psychology, Technical
Psychology and Ergonomics (the latter mainly used in Europe).
Luczak and Volpert et al. (1987) stated that the Human Engineering does comprise all
disciplines that deal with the working human being, ranging from medicine, psychology,
sociology, technology to law. Human Engineering was therefore defined as the systematics
of analysis, order, and design of technical, organizational, and social conditions of work

processes aiming at offering human beings productive and efficient work processes with
harmless, manageable and un-disturbed working conditions as well as standards regarding
content of work, work analysis, working environment, and remuneration and cooperation so
that they felt motivated to expand their scope of activity, acquire competence and to
develop and preserve their personality in cooperation with others.

Figure1. Ergonomics and their disciplines

Ergonomics is a multi-disciplinary science which uses basic knowledge from Human
Science, Engineering Science and Economic and Social Science. It comprises of
occupational medicine, industrial psychology, industrial pedagogics, working-technique and
industrial law as well as industrial sociology. All of these sciences, from their different points
of views, deal with human work and therefore represent an aspect of this science. With
regard to feasibility, this basic knowledge is summarized in so-called praxeologies. The one
which is more oriented towards sociology, is called macro ergonomics. Its goal is to
provide rules for the technical design of work places and work tools (see also fig. 1). For
both, however, research focuses on the individual and its experiencing the workplace.
Regarding the term work there are two different point of views: the original one, i.e.
subject-related work as effort, and another one which sees work as object-related in the
sense of production of goods and services. The latter one could also be regarded as a
generation of information by individual performance which corresponds to the economicscientific terminology of added value. Therefore, Ergonomics strives for reducing the
subject-oriented workload and at the same time improving the object-related performance
whilst carrying out the work. The individual performance of a human being carrying out his
work is often influenced by external performance shaping factors, i.e. the factual
performance prerequisites, as well as internal performance shaping factors, i.e. the
respective human performance prerequisites (see fig 2). Managements mission is to

provide the external conditions in order to allow for an optimum of human performance
efforts.
3. Micro Ergonomics
3.1 Traditional Ergonomics
The main goal of Micro Ergonomics is to improve the performance of the whole work system
as well as to reduce the stress imposed on the working human being by means of analyzing
the task, the working environment and the man-machine-interaction. The stress-strainconcept is the traditional approach to assess work systems. The basic concept is that each
workplace is characterized by external factors, which are same for all individuals working
there (stress), whereas the individual reacts differently to those depending on the individual
characteristics and abilities (strain). If one looks into detail, the stress can be distinguished
between stress-parameters (that can generally be quantified in numbers), stress-factors
(can
generally
only
be
described)
and
stress-exposure-time.

Figure 2. Performance shaping factors

To get a picture of the factors influencing work, the structure of the man-machine-system
has to be examined by looking at the human work in relation to the therein contained
information and the respective flow of information ( see fig 3). This comprises the task
setting or the task and its translation into action respectively, the task fulfillment or the
result respectively. The feedback arrow closes the control-loop created by the man-machinesystem (MMS) and shows that the operator generally is able to compare task and result. All
inflows to this process are called environmental impacts.

Figure 3. Structural system of human work

The stress-strain-concept described above can be applied on the stress caused by task
setting as well as environmental stress. For the analysis of the task setting, one
distinguishes between:
tasks with predominantly physical load (physical work); one differentiates here
between static and dynamic physical work. For both, the stress can be quantified by
the giving physical work requirements
tasks with predominantly mental load (intellectual work); an overall concept to
define this stress in numbers does not exist; intellectual work is therefore generally
seen as stress-factor
tasks with mixed requirements (mixed work)
For the analysis of environmental impacts (environmental ergonomics), one distinguishes
between:
physical environmental impacts, which can be measured as well as their impacts on
human beings which can be assessed quantitatively. These are mainly light, noise,
mechanical vibrations, climate, poisoning gas and smoke, radiation, dust, dirt, and
moisture.
social environmental impacts which cannot be measured physically and therefore
have to be analysed differently.
Another field of Micro Ergonomics is the analysis of the aspects within the man-machinesystem (MMS). This analysis can be done, on one hand, by taking into account the
geometrical situation of the workplace and tools (anthropometrical workplace design) or, on
the other hand, by considering the information flow in the Man-Machine-System (Systems
Ergonomics).
The anthropometrical workplace design concentrates on the layout of the vision area, the
grasping area and the motion area of the feet, on the layout of body supports (e.g. seats) as
well as on the design of displays and controls. Besides the knowledge of the respective
sensory perception barriers and conditions (e.g. resolution capacity of the eye, moving
accuracy of the extremities), which are important for displays and controls, the design of
the area that one can touch and reach with his foot as well as body supports, mainly the
various height of human beings, play a major role. By percentiling the different body
measures one attempts to deal with this problem systematically. Moreover, to simplify the
often complex geometrical design problems, computer-generated human models (3Dmodels) were developed which allowed for the possibility of designing workplaces by CAD.

3.2 Systems Ergonomics

Systems Analysis allows to examine the basic structure of human beings within a complex
MMS. Its goal is to obtain requirements for the layout of the man-machine-interaction within
the framework of the specification of the MMS or ideas for possible improvements. As
systems ergonomics strives for an optimizing this interaction, it contributes at the same
time to reduce the number of mistakes made by human beings at work (active security) and
to increase the reliability of the overall performance of the MMS. A main procedure of
systems ergonomics is to define the systems elements and their interaction. Two basic
principles that should be highlighted are:

Information is always transmitted on very specific channels from the exit of one
element to the entry of the other
Elements are defined by their characteristic to alter information in a specific manner
determined by the element

The fundamental characteristic of the systems analysis, and therefore of systems

ergonomics, is to disregard the physical nature of the elements and their interaction and
merely to examine the formal structure of this interaction and they means of the elements
information transmission. In systems ergonomics, the system components human being
and machine are the main subjects of research. As the viewpoint is independent from the
physical nature of the respective element, the results of systems ergonomics can be
transferred to different MMS.
3.3 Application of Ergonomics
Ergonomics is generally differentiated as per the field of application such as product design
and production ergonomics.
The main goal in product design ergonomics is to offer a product adapted to the customer to
the best extent possible while the customer base is more-or-less unknown. For the
development of such products, for the design, it is also important to know about the
variability of human beings regarding anthropometrical as well as cognitive features. A
current area of research of product design ergonomics is the scientific recording of
everything related to the feeling and experiencing of comfort.
The goal of production ergonomics, however, is to provide working environments in
manufacturing and service companies that are adapted to human beings. The objective
hereby is to reduce the stress of the worker and optimize his performance ratio at the same
time. This means, that in the majority of the cases, this is about reasonability and
tolerability. Contrary to the objective of production ergonomics, the targeted human being
is well-known, which enables to better address his needs better. As for both product design
as well as production ergonomics the above mentioned methods of ergonomics are used
and as often the product of one producer is the tool of the other, it is virtually not
possible to draw a partition between both.
Main fields of application of ergonomic development are aviation, maintenance and office,
etc. Another specialized field of ergonomics is the research on threshold values for work in
extreme conditions, e.g., narrowness, cold, heat, overpressure, extreme acceleration,
weightlessness, catastrophic situations, etc.

4 Macro Ergonomics
4.1 Theory of Macro Ergonomics
Macro Ergonomics (labor organization in particular) deals with the systematic structure and
organization of a workflow regarding task, content and time factors. It can be differentiated
into an organizational structure and work process organization. The target of Macro
Ergonomics is not the single workplace (as in Micro Ergonomics) but the interaction between
several workplaces (Zlch, 1992). Its goal is to check the ergonomic requirements on this
level. In this context, also the term macro work systems is employed. The single areas of
the macro organization can be derived if the single work system (fig. 3) is transferred into
the larger work task context of a group (fig. 4).
It should be seen as a major task to develop valuation systems for macro ergonomics,
contrary to micro ergonomics, those do not yet exist, whereby both aspects of feasibility as
well as aspects of personality development for employees should be taken into account
(Zlch, 1992). Management measures, such as job enrichment (adding tasks to avoid
monotony), job enlargement (add more responsibilities to the task), job rotation (switch
tasks following a pre-determined structure or based on direct communication with the
collaborators), whereby the prerequisite of all is team work, is designed to develop the
personnels personality besides increasing flexibility, which is desired from an economic
point of view.

Figure 4. Reference framework of the work organization (Zlch, 1992)

4.2

Macro Ergonomics in Business and Society

It is only possible to observe and judge the impact of macro ergonomic measures regarding
their impact with the background of the respective company organization and the social
environment. Therefore, the observation and assessment of the respective interactions is
another macro ergonomic field of activity. Fig. 5 shows a summary of interactions which
have been developed on the basis of IEAs topic selection. In the sense of the above
mentioned terminology, it shows at least the environment impacts which cannot be
manipulated directly.
Of major interest from a macro ergonomic point of view, i.e. taking into account the
individual requirements and needs of the employee, is the study of the effects which derive
from modern business organizational developments as the learning plant or the fractal
plant. Its main feature is the dynamic change, whereby the employee must be able to
foresee and understand the logic in order to accept it. In addition, relevant general social
developments are of course subject to macro economic studies. This means that the shift of
employed work from work in the production to the service field and the flexibility expected
from the employee regarding contract as well as his willingness of life-time learning are of
major importance on the issue of future organization of work. Nevertheless, the overall
orientation of all macro and micro ergonomic efforts should not be forgotten: the human
being does not live to work but works to live.

Figure 5. The business and social aspects influencing the organization of work

References

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Wiley & Sons, New York, Chichester, Brisbane, Toronto
Jastrzebowski, W. (1857): Rys Ergonomji, czyli Nauki o Pracy. Przyroda Przemysl
Tygodnik, Rok 2, No 29.
Luczak, H., Volpert, W. Raithel, A. & Shwier, W. (1987): Arbeitwissenschaftliche
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Woodson W. E. (1981) : Human Factor Design Handbook. McGraw Hill Book
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