Organizational and Process Differences Influencing Ergonomic Design

A study of current design practices was conducted to identify organizational and design process differences influencing the use of ergonomic information in manual workspace design. Significant differences regarding the design information sources and objectives existed between preliminary, or division-level, and detailed, or plant-level, design activities. Ergonomic concerns, e.g., health and safety factors and operator feedback, were most clearly present in plant-level design; unfortunately, plant designers also had the least flexibility, in terms of design parameters to vary, and dollars to spend, to retrofit inadequate designs. Results indicate specific factors, (such as designer temporal and geographic proximity to the design implementation), to consider during the development of an effective industrial ergonomics training program.