Human Factors

Human factors are criteria of good design include the effectiveness of work and the efficiency of a product. The human factors can greatly influence how individual, groups and organisations function. The processes and methods are the ‘how’ rather than the ‘what’. How something is done is at least as important to the outcome as what is done and the individual, groups and organisations function have important contributions of this kind. It plays a key role in determining the effectiveness with which an organisation uses technology and its ability to develop or adopt new technology in its products and processes. Some organisations have recognised human factors and are building on the strong base of academic and research work. It’s academic and research base lies in anatomy, physiology, experimental psychology and cognitive sciences.

Human factors do not represent an integrated or logical body of knowledge, however rather an area of interaction between a number of disciplinary perspectives. In USA ‘human factors’ is equivalent to ergonomics, however in Europe it has come to mean that part of ergonomics particularly concerned with human system interaction. Ergonomics, in the rules of the Ergonomics Society (1949) is defined as the study of the relation between people and their occupation, equipment and environment, particularly the application of anatomical, physiological and psychological knowledge to the problems arising therefrom.

There are several methods used in the process of human factors such as the current forms of computer based simulation like Schematic representations (e.g. IDEF0), Mathematical modelling (e.g. Queuing Theory), Discrete Event Simulation (DES) and System Dynamics (SD) to assure engineers as much about the system as they require to know. In other hand, the Health and Safety, ergonomics and sociotechnical literature, occupational psychology, social psychology, industrial psychology and some parts of economics are widely used to get detail information about the environment, human factors and behaviour.

Human factors are important as this is where most manufacturing accidents occur. Further, improving this portion of the human behaviour will be necessary for future manufacturing systems that will employ new technology. A combination of methods should be employed towards fully and properly understanding this system. We should not rely on one strategy (e.g., simulation, ergonomics, sociology, physiology, psychology and so on). We should also consider new methods for system analysis that provide a more comprehensive understanding of the system. Indeed, a multidisciplinary approach can generate new and fresh ideas for research. Taking a multidisciplinary approach is a motivation behind one of the contributions of this dissertation. That is, developing a methodology for work system analysis that treats the system and cognitive components as equally important and applicable to manufacturing system.

There has several factors been taken in account of human’s character and behaviour, and maintaining strong link between the knowledge base and practice, by promoting better procedures for coordinated function, and by the methods of spreading (esp. ideas) widely and best practice of those already experienced in organisation. In ACOST (1993) booklet it has been mentioned about the strategic objectives which have been taken account for in human factors and organisation design are:

• Extensive acknowledgment of the reality that people, technology and organisations from strongly interacting systems;
• Acknowledgment by senior management of the importance of human factors and organisational design to the performance of their organisation;
• Systematic application of existing knowledge in this field with organisations and making it an accepted part of procedure;
• Improved access and spread (esp. ideas) widely the knowledge of the researchers and practitioners;