Ergonomics and Human Factors: Productivity and Safety in Workplaces - Term Paper Example

Ergonomics and human factors: Design. For the enhancement of usability, productivity and safety in workplaces Introduction: In modern times, the industrial environments have become so demanding that all the work carried out leaves a direct impact both on the body and mind of worker. For this reason an effective discipline and mechanism is needed which ensures proper working environment and suitable working conditions for the employees. A discipline which takes in to account all the important considerations of the workers and their environment that serves the purpose of mutual benefits to both of them.

Ergonomics is the solution to all these issues and provides sufficient knowledge about the dos and don’ts of working environment. The purpose of ergonomics is to increase efficiency, reduce the errors that may occur due to working procedures, and reduce fatigue that might be experienced in performing the routine activities in an organization. The working principles of ergonomics provide sufficient guidance for successful and stress free work. This subject deals with relationship of human beings to their working environment.

The aim of ergonomics is to maximize the productivity and ensure the workers safety by mitigating the risks. It is the study of all those factors which have an impact on the workers and further provides guidelines for safe practices. In modern day, large number of international organizations put great stress on the application of the principles of ergonomics. These organizations make it mandatory part of the working in bid to ensure safety and avoid stress levels. The early traces of this term and concept can be traced back to era of Second World War (Chmiel, pg153, 2008).

These practices apply to almost all disciplines and industries however they are of immense importance and unavoidable in such industries where the workers are at direct threat from various entities. Aviation and nuclear technological industries have ergonomic principles in place for a while now. Work place ergonomics pertain to both physical ergonomics as well as cognitive ergonomics. While the former deals with the physical aspects of workers, the latter is concerned with the mental state of working that is directly associated with the working environment in the workplace.

The term human factors is often interchangeably used for ergonomics in various parts of the world and it nearly carries the same message and objective of improving the work place conditions and making them safer for the workers in various ways which include the mental state as well as the physical state of individuals. The objective of entire purpose is to make the working environment as suitable to the human needs as possible by reducing the stress and over work and highlight and eliminate inappropriate working methods.

The scope of ergonomics is not just limited to safe working, instead if it is practiced in a proper manner; it ensures increased productivity in form of reduced errors and mishandling .The scope of ergonomics and human factors affiliation is very wide and it pertains not just to the safe working and errors determination, rather it highlights even the smallest of elements which may contribute to poor performance and errors and mistake. The scope of it even curtails factors like, mental peace, illness, cultural differences, consideration of the ambience and various other factors which are otherwise ignored in normal proceedings.

Work place layout is area of vital importance and it defines the posture of the body and the distance needed as well as the positioning of other components that are part of the working place. The positioning and design of the work place is subjective to the type of work performed, however all the positioning modes have one thing in common and that is to ensure maximum safety and relaxed working environment for the workers. In case of the posture, which can be either in standing position or sitting pose, the body should be right in line with the object and should not be in position which results in exertion of stress over any part of the body.

Adjustable chairs, foot rest, and equipment flexible positioning tools are recommended for working (Borne & Kimberly, 1998). Posture should be changed couple of times every hour, and stress exertion on one particular part of body must be avoided. Other factors include the surrounding temperature, the intensity of illumination, the level of sound in the background and presence of any noise in the surroundings. Few of the disorders and complications that can arise from work stress and improper working postures include Cumulative Trauma Disorder, Herniated Disc Epicondylitis and formation of cysts.

Various tools are used in ergonomics one of the most effective one is F.E.M.A. It is acronym for Failure Mode and Effect Analysis. This approach enables identifying the probable failures, and allows prioritization of failures and recovery processes, the priority setting is decided by a team designated for this purpose who look into the various factors and their impact on the overall scenario. It enables establishing new tools and techniques and preventive measures for mitigating any error occurrence (Lee, pg 296, 1999).

Conclusion: Hence ergonomics and human factors establish a root cause analysis which is based on the belief of prevention rather than correction. In other words Ergonomics is a complete recipe for successful and safe practices in organizations. The requirements of human factors can be addressed by implementing human factors engineering, which is the application of all the principles and rules of the human factor discipline. Bibliography: 1-Borne, & Kimberly, M. (1998). Improving work conditions through ergonomics.

Ohio Manufacturer. 2-Carayon, P. (2011). Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care and Patient Safety. CRC Press. 3-Chmiel, N. (2008). An Introduction to Work and Organizational Psychology: A European Perspective. John Wiley & Sons. 4-Lee, G. C. (1999). Advances in Occupational Ergonomics and Safety 3. IOS Press. 5-Surgeons, A. A., & Physicians, A. C. (2009). Critical Care Transport. Jones & Bartlett Learning. 6-Salvendy, G. (2012). Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics. John Wiley & Sons.