The demise of military standards may affect ergonomics

Abstract

Anticipating reduced emphasis on human factors engineering, some companies have already cut back on human factors engineering staff. A consortium of defense industries, spearheaded by the electronics firms who were required by military specification and standards to maintain separate production lines for military components, has persuaded the Secretary of Defense to direct that military specification and standards should not be used, or if used, to require special permission by high-level officials. Clearly, electronics, or any other rapidly evolving technology should not be constrained by inappropriate standards. In the rush to economize, has it been forgotten that the human operator or maintainer has not evolved significantly in the last hundred years? The human factors engineering standards embody the lessons learned over the past 40 years into acceptable design solutions, as well as much of what we think of as systems safety. Both government and industry have worked to keep these standards up-to-date and relevant.