Beyond Comfort: Ergonomics in Engineering Education and Design: Guidelines for Postgraduates and Researchers (original) (raw)

The Role of Ergonomics Issues in Engineering Education

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2013

M he majority of engineers have some sorts of communications with employees, directly or indirectly. Otherwise industrial hygiene and safety are known as an important issue for all of staffs, so the engineers need some appropriate information about occupational health. Undoubtedly, universities have an effective role to train the engineering students about human being and work related health and safety problems. One of the sciences which considers to human health, human performance and Ergonomics. In this study, the knowledge of the engineering students about ergonomics has been considered. In this regards, one of the well known technical universities in Iran with about five decades experience in offering engineering courses and programs was selected and 200 volunteer students among different disciplines (metallurgy, industrial Eng, mechanics, civil Eng., computer science, electrical and power Eng.) were interviewed in which their knowledge and awareness about ergonomics were questioned. The main focused point in an interview and questionnaire was ergonomics. This study showed that more than 71% of students did not have fair information about ergonomics and its importance in their future jobs. Also, statistical analysis by SpssWin showed a significant relationship between students with different disciplines in terms of their knowledge about ergonomics, however in this regards, there was no significant difference among students of industrial engineering who were in three different disciplines of industrial engineering. This case study emphasizes on offering a three-credit ergonomic course for all of the engineering students.

INDUSTRIAL GUIDE TO ERGONOMICS ENGINEERING

INDUSTRIAL GUIDE TO ERGONOMICS ENGINEERING, 2019

Ergonomics is the study of people while they use equipment in specific environments to perform certain tasks. Ergonomics seeks to minimize adverse effects of the environment upon people and thus to enable each person to maximize his or her contribution to a given job. This industry guide: Explains generally how measurements of human traits can be used to further workplace safety, health, comfort and productivity, discusses how to enhance worker safety by combining principles that govern the action of forces with knowledge of the human body, analyzes properties of illumination and explains how proper illumination makes for a safer workplace by reducing worker fatigue, shows how hand tools can be designed to reduce injuries to employees and to lessen trauma to their body members, illustrates ways to recognize proper sitting positions and to construct seating arrangements to minimize stress to the lumbar region, demonstrates how workspaces can be designed to decrease psychological stress and to increase employee motivation, directs attention to the benefits of proper selection and strategic arrangement of controls and displays for the machinery operation, offers general information about ways to reduce back injuries that result from manual lifting and offers more specialized guidelines for evaluating physical stresses imposed by lifting, refines the concept of the worker with a disability and suggests ways of meeting the special needs of people with disabilities, and stimulates new thinking about problems such as those from the sustained operation of computers) brought about by technological advancements. This industry guide demonstrates how benefits are derived from applying the principles of ergonomics to workplace safety and health. It gives the reader a solid

ERGONOMICS AND DESIGN

3 3 D De ep pa ar rt tm me en nt t o of f P Pr ro od du uc ct ti io on n, , Abstract Today, both workers and management are concerned about the quality of work lives, ergonomics and occupational safety and health. New development such as information and communication technologies and specialized work requiring repetitive tasks add up to a need for Ergonomics. By examining, designing, testing and evaluating the work piece and how people interact in it, ergonomics can create productive, safe, and satisfying work environment. Ergonomics is concerns with the study of the relationship between people and work environment. The scope for the application of ergonomics in our working environment is tremendous. Ergonomics has the essential role to play in increasing work efficiency and productivity by making the tool or machine fit the users and the worker's efficiency. Ergonomics developed into a recognized field during the Second World War, when for the first time, technology and the human science s were systematically applied in a coordinated manner [1]. The application of Ergonomics is very much in Europe and northern America. Recently Southeast Asian countries including Bangladesh are applying the concept of ergonomics industrial workstation design. This paper focuses on the importance of ergonomics in product design, working environment, and its influence in industrial workstation design, the interdisciplinary nature of ergonomics and the implications of ergonomics in industrial engineering function. It also contains the importance of ergonomics for an industrial engineer to design product.

Ergonomics Training for Engineers: Are We Meeting Their Needs?

Early design decisions by engineers can have enormous impact on operators in the system. Ergonomists provide training for engineers to increase application of ergonomics -a "knowledge strategy". However, do we know what ergonomics knowledge best meets their needs? A survey and focus group with engineers at BlackBerry Ltd. evaluated effectiveness of previous training. Engineers recognized the importance of ergonomics, but reported that broad training and guidelines were not useful. They suggested time-efficient training for basic design needs such as fit, reach, tool and grip sizes, hand clearances, weight/forces and anthropometry One engineer suggested: "Give us the information we need to know based on what we do here today, with lots of visual examples of good and bad, and use our designs". Since they re-use 80-90% of design elements, the engineers recommended a best-in-class "benchmark" endorsed by ergonomists as a platform design, specific design rules, and ergonomic audits post assembly launch for lessons learned. Ergonomists can improve training for engineers by doing such a needs assessment and evaluation.

Ergonomics in design and design in ergonomics: Issues and experience in education

Work-a Journal of Prevention Assessment & Rehabilitation, 2020

BACKGROUND: Articulating design and ergonomics skills through education is a major challenge for both fields. Indeed, professional ergonomists are increasingly deeply involved in design processes, and ergonomics education should train them in design skills. As courses in ergonomics education are often time-constrained, it is difficult to mobilize students in real-scale projects and to involve them in design processes. Conversely, activity analysis and active involvement of users in design projects (through co-creation or co-design processes) are rarely convened in architecture and design curricula. OBJECTIVE: It is therefore necessary to develop effective and relevant pedagogical settings, enabling students of both fields to develop their abilities and equip them to act in concrete design situations. METHODS: In this paper, we describe a large-scale pedagogical setting involving groups of students from different disciplines gathered around a real-scale design project (re-shaping the waiting room of a mental health center). The ergonomics students' main task is to analyze the needs and real activities of end-users; the interior design students' task is to produce the design project. This communication more precisely focuses on describing the ergonomics students' fieldwork and the practical and pedagogical innovations put in place to help them face the various challenges encountered during the project. RESULTS: Based on formal feedback from students, teachers and stakeholders, we address three main challenges: (1) dealing with the temporal constraints of the intervention, (2) documenting and observing a sensitive situation and (3) involving endusers to place them at the core of the design process. For each challenge, we describe the issue at stake, the work conducted to deal with this issue, and eventually the feedback collected from students, teachers and stakeholders. CONCLUSION: The paper concludes with an analysis of success and failure factors for such pedagogical settings, in particular for physical enquiry devices, co-creation processes, and co-constructed pedagogical settings. It shows the impact of these settings for students, but highlight that collaboration between ergonomists and designers is a key issue for learning in a positive experience.