Industrial ergonomics - Essay Example

Industrial Ergonomics Industrial Ergonomics Ergonomics comes from two Greek words ‘Epyov’ meaning ‘work’ and ‘Nouos’ meaning ‘natural law’. Industrial ergonomics refers to the study of designing devices and equipments that match the human body, its actions, and cognitive abilities. These devices and equipments perform their duties by assisting humans as they carry out duties and responsibilities in the work environment. This helps in optimizing the human’s well-being and, thus, enhancing their ability to work efficiently and effectively.

The overall performance of the system gets a boost and is tremendously improved (Weedmaster, 2007). This paper will look at human error, and how it relates and affects ergonomic issues in the workplace. The human body is prone to get fatigued after continuous, vigorous work. This leaves room for errors to inevitably occur, as a result of fatigue. For example, take a person working in the office behind a computer the entire day. The eyes, wrists, and back are strained significantly from constant use and movement.

At the end of the day, this person may not be fully productive due to fatigue. The application of ergonomics comes into play in such scenarios. Devices are designed to ensure that a person’s performance is optimal, greatly reducing the chances of human error, which are a result of fatigue. In the scenario provided, special glasses for the eyes, high articulating keyboard for the wrist and adjustable chairs for the back are some of the features that can be adopted to reduce fatigue and human error (Karwowski, 1997).

Ergonomics, therefore, ensures that the employees are safe and, that they perform optimally in any organization. This is done by reducing the amount of errors in their output, thus, strengthening their input. This translates to more productivity since employees will work for longer hours with reduced levels of fatigue. This strategy ensures that companies reduce internals costs and improve working capability, thus, boosting the profits to higher margins. It also helps the company save up money which would otherwise go to employees for compensation in key cases of fatigue and human error.

It is highly recommended for companies to embrace this and help their employees in maximizing their potential, which will subsequently boost the company’s objectives (Karwowski, 1997).ReferencesKarwowski, W. (1997). Ergonomics in manufacturing. USA: John Wiley & Sons.Weedmaster, B. (2007). Introduction to ergonomics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.