Design of Industrial Jobs a Worker Can and Will Do

Ergonomists working in the military area need to modify some of their assumptions about operator (or worker) behavior when they transfer to work in the industrial area. The goal of the ergonomist in the latter area should not be job simplification as it often is in the former area. Job simplification is a frequent outcome of human factors approaches which consider only what a man can do. In the industrial setting, cost-effective attainment of long-range industrial system efficiency and effectiveness cannot be achieved unless consideration is also given to what a man will do. This paper describes some of the factors important to the ergonomist in industrial work and suggests that their consideration is especially important if the ergonomist is to consider himself as a systems designer rather than a “knobs and dials” man.