Process Oriented Ergonomics - The Ergonomics of the Future? A Case Study of Integrated Ergonomics at an Engine Assembly Plant

Ergonomics are, in most cases, focusing on the human being when evaluating assembly system designs. This results in the human performance being expressed isolated from the technical environment. On the other hand, technicians are prone to concentrate on the hardware. These conditions underline the need to pursue a more integrated evaluation and design procedure in order to avoid the drawbacks of these traditional approaches. In this paper, the authors propose an alternative approach, i.e. process oriented ergonomics, which might be a constructive way of tackling some of the more complex aspects of the man-machine interaction in industrial environments such as assembly of engines.