Work System Design Research Articles

A Study on the Interplay between the Constructs of Quality of Work life: With Special Reference to IT Professionals in Bangalore City

It is almost impossible today to pick up a newspaper or news-magazine without finding a reference to quality of work/working life. In the search for improved productivity, manager and executives alike are discovering the important contribution of QWL. QWL entails the design of work systems that enhance the working life experiences of organizational members, thereby improving commitment and motivation for achieving organizational goals. Most, often, this has been implemented through the design of jobs that afford workers more direct control over their immediate work environment. It also refers to the favorableness or unfavorableness of a job environment for people. The basic purpose is to develop work environments that are excellent for people as well as for the economic health of the organization. A better quality of work life for employees leads to a higher productivity for the employer. Quality in work is important for individuals, but also for growth, employment and a sustainable and competitive economy. “When organization have addressed the issue of quality of working life, they have always achieved great productivity breakthroughs

The science of human factors: separating fact from fiction

BackgroundInterest in human factors has increased across healthcare communities and institutions as the value of human centred design in healthcare becomes increasingly clear. However, as human factors is becoming more...

GRP-081 Health Information Technology and Stressors: How to Measure and Eliminate Them

BackgroundThe daily tasks of hospital personnel are regularly interrupted. Unexpected breaks in work patterns act as supplementary cognitive burdens on health workers (hence the term stressors) and can lead to...

Do we need sustainability as a new approach in human factors and ergonomics?

The International Ergonomics Association Technical Committee ‘Human Factors and Sustainable Development’ was established to contribute to a broad discourse about opportunities and risks resulting from current societal ‘mega-trends’ and their impacts on the interactions among humans and other elements of a system, e.g. in work systems. This paper focuses on the underlying key issues: how do the sustainability paradigm and human factors/ergonomics interplay and interact, and is sustainability necessary as a new approach for our discipline? Based on a discussion of the sustainability concept, some general principles for designing new and enhancing existent approaches of human factors and ergonomics regarding their orientation towards sustainability are proposed. Practitioner summary: The increasing profile of sustainability on the international stage presents new opportunities for human factors/ergonomics. Positioning of the sustainability paradigm within human factors/ergonomics is discussed. Approaches to incorporating sustainability in the design of work systems are considered.

Design, implementation and evaluation of a FPGA embedded digital systems course at the university level

This work describes the first teaching experience of FPGA-based embedded digital systems at Facultad de Ciencias Exactas e Ingeniería, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Argentina. The course contents, modality and ways to assess student learning are detailed, also results obtained from student assessment and from course evaluation are presented. Hardware description languages are strategically taught to student with basic knowledge of digital systems. The course is oriented to electronics engineering advanced students and professionals from exact sciences' area. Course contents include VHDL language learning, practical work realization, and FPGA-based system design as a final evaluation. The course evaluation is performed by means of quantitative results obtained from student assessment- considering realized practical work and FPGA-based system design- and from an inquest answered by the learning group.

In search of vigilance: The problem of iatrogenically created psychological phenomena.

To what extent are identified psychological processes created in laboratories? The present work addresses this issue with reference to one particular realm of behavior: vigilance. Specifically, I argue that the classic vigilance decrement function can be viewed more realistically and advantageously as an "invigilant" increment function. Rather than characterizing the transient decrease in detection capability that is evident on exposure to enforced monitoring as a diminishment in capacity, it may be more usefully seen as an appropriate scaling by the designated observer to adapt to the nonoptimal circumstances that he or she is forced to endure. This proposition emphasizes the dynamic response characteristics of the observer and locates the origin of the phenomenon and the onus for practical improvements in the design of operational displays with designers rather than apportioning blame for performance decrements to the operator. This perspective reinforces the recognition of a crucial presence of the necessary but often unrecognized external arbiter in the vigilance paradigm and the extrinsically imposed imperative to sustain attention. Explicit recognition of this fact also helps explain the stress involved with extended vigils. In identifying the traditional vigilance decrement as a form of iatrogenic disease, I argue that modern design of work systems should alleviate the need for either the acute or the chronic expressions of such enforced human monitoring activity. It is possible that the case of vigilance is itself representative of a modern propensity to create new psychological phenomena in the face of human exposure to modern, evolving technical environments.

A Review of Human Factors Challenges of Complex Adaptive Systems

In this paper, the author explores a need for a greater understanding of the true nature of human-system interactions from the perspective of the theory of complex adaptive systems, including the essence of complexity, emergent properties of system behavior, nonlinear systems dynamics, and deterministic chaos. Human performance, more often than not, constitutes complex adaptive phenomena with emergent properties that exhibit nonlinear dynamical (chaotic) behaviors. The complexity challenges in the design and management of contemporary work systems, including service systems, are explored. Examples of selected applications of the concepts of nonlinear dynamics to the study of human physical performance are provided. Understanding and applications of the concepts of theory of complex adaptive and dynamical systems should significantly improve the effectiveness of human-centered design efforts of a large system of systems. Performance of many contemporary work systems and environments may be sensitive to the initial conditions and may exhibit dynamic nonlinear properties and chaotic system behaviors. Human-centered design of emergent human-system interactions requires application of the theories of nonlinear dynamics and complex adaptive system. The success of future human-systems integration efforts requires the fusion of paradigms, knowledge, design principles, and methodologies of human factors and ergonomics with those of the science of complex adaptive systems as well as modern systems engineering.

Characterizing patient care in hospital emergency departments

The purpose of this study is to characterize the early stage (i.e., until first prescriber order) of patient care in emergency departments (EDs) by focusing on the temporal sequence of activities by multiple roles. A hundred and eight patient care episodes in three EDs were observed and modeled as patient-oriented workflows. Capturing individual episodes allowed us to account for cooperative work in EDs. Data analysis revealed a high level of variability across patient care episodes. We also identified six patterns differentiated primarily by whether the prescriber is a physician or midlevel clinician. Secondary differentiators included whether the patient arrived in the ED as walk-in or via ambulance, and in which ED the patient care occurred. The high level of workflow variability reported in this study should be recognized in the design of ED work systems. Moreover, work interventions should not limit EDs’ capacity to handle sequential variability in patient care.

Analysis of the Influence of Heater Terminal Temperature Difference on the Cycle Thermal Efficiency

Heater terminal temperature difference is one of important equipment of thermal system, the influence of terminal temperature difference on thermal economy is great. The accurate calculation of terminal temperature difference influence on thermal economy is helpful to thermal system design, operation and maintenance work. This article took a 300MW steam turbine as an example, adopted the equivalent heat drop method to calculate various levels heaters terminal temperature difference influence on the live steam work load, circulation heat and cycle thermal efficiency.

Working Late: strategies to enhance productive and healthy environments for the older workforce

Aims and objectives: Working Late is a 4 year multidisciplinary research project addressing practice and policy issues associated with later life working. The project is funded by the New Dynamics of Ageing (NDA) Programme. Methods: The Working Late research adopts a mixed method research approach of focus groups, interviews, surveys, interventions and the development of a design resource to enhance health and quality of working life across the life span. Results: This paper describes findings from the surveys and physical activity interventions along with the development of the design resource which captures the needs of the older workforce. Discussion: This research unites key policy themes: the need to maintain workforce capacity and flexibility; the need to retain older people in the workforce; and the need to support active healthy ageing. Conclusion: This project brings together the policy domains of employment dynamics, work systems design and health and the outputs will inform policies and practices aiming to remove barriers to later life workforce participation, and promote the health and well-being of older workers.

Ergonomics action research II: a framework for integrating HF into work system design

This paper presents a conceptual framework that can support efforts to integrate human factors (HF) into the work system design process, where improved and cost-effective application of HF is possible. The framework advocates strategies of broad stakeholder participation, linking of performance and health goals, and process focussed change tools that can help practitioners engage in improvements to embed HF into a firm's work system design process. Recommended tools include business process mapping of the design process, implementing design criteria, using cognitive mapping to connect to managers’ strategic goals, tactical use of training and adopting virtual HF (VHF) tools to support the integration effort. Consistent with organisational change research, the framework provides guidance but does not suggest a strict set of steps. This allows more adaptability for the practitioner who must navigate within a particular organisational context to secure support for embedding HF into the design process for improved operator wellbeing and system performance. Practitioner Summary: There has been little scientific literature about how a practitioner might integrate HF into a company's work system design process. This paper proposes a framework for this effort by presenting a coherent conceptual framework, process tools, design tools and procedural advice that can be adapted for a target organisation.

Ergonomics action research I: shifting from hypothesis testing to experiential learning

This paper presents the case for the need for ‘Action Research’ (AR) approaches to gain understanding of how ergonomics considerations can best be integrated into the design of new work systems. The AR researchers work collaboratively with other stakeholders to solve a real-world problem: gaining insight into the problem and factors influencing solution building from an embedded position in the development process. This experience is interpreted in terms of available theory and can support further theory development. This non-experimental approach can help provide practical new approaches for integrating ergonomics considerations into real work system design processes. The AR approach suffers from a lack of acceptance by conventionally trained scientists. This paper aims to help overcome this weakness by developing the underlying theory and rationale for using AR approaches in ergonomics research. We propose further development of hybrid approaches which incorporate other evaluation techniques to extend the knowledge gains from AR projects. Practitioner Summary: Researchers should engage directly with organisations in ergonomics projects so that they can better understand the challenges and needs of practitioners who are trying to apply available scientific knowledge in their own unique context. Such ‘Action Research’ could help develop theory and approaches useful to improve mobilisation and application of ergonomics knowledge in organisations.

Cognition, technology, and work: special issue on cognitive ergonomics for designing collaborative activities

This special issue presents six papers organized by the theme: ‘‘Cognitive Ergonomics for Designing Collaborative Activities’’. Originally, the focus of cognitive ergonomics has been on the performance of single users, on understanding their cognitive abilities, needs and preferences while interacting with machines and computers. Human activities are inherently collaborative, though, and in the past two decades, the field has gradually broadened its perspective on the analysis and the design of work systems, tasks and supporting technology. It is common ground now that designing for use requires a deep understanding of collaborative aspects and of appropriation processes of artefacts in complex social settings. The special issue on collaboration in context: cognitive and organizational artefacts, published by Cognition, Technology and Work in 2005 (Jones et al. 2005) is an example of reflecting this development that was supported by close interaction with other disciplines such as human–computer interaction (HCI), cognitive psychology, information science, sociology and organizational sciences. The mutual exchange of knowledge and ideas is also visible in the contributions of this issue. Design interventions inevitably change work practices as artefacts shape cognition and collaboration (Woods 1998). New tools, representations or organizational structures make some of the existing obsolete and require an adaptation of skills and knowledge. Their appropriation not only changes forms of collaboration but also—at a deeper level—relationships between the participants (e.g. power relations). The effects of design activities, whether they are intended or not, need to be reflected within the particular problem setting and at a more general level to improve the design understanding for the future. The theme of this special issue is not new, but it requires ongoing attention. The current issue provides studies that contribute to a more detailed picture of the diverse forms of human activities and how they are or could be mediated by technology. It is mainly a selection of extended versions of papers presented at the European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics 2011 which went through an additional reviewing process to be accepted for this special issue.

4.2.2 Application of Systems Engineering to Improve Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) Therapy

AbstractThough able to boost survival rates from below 25% to nearly 75% in patients that qualify for treatment, the complexity of the currently implemented Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) system of systems keeps it from being used across an even wider range of patients. Representatives from the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta asked a team from the Georgia Tech Professional Masters in Applied Systems Engineering for assistance in reducing the complexity of the current implementation as well as help provide a way forward for future improvement to the therapy. This paper examines the application of systems engineering methodologies as performed by the team, including Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), gap analysis of the system architecture and data visualization prototyping. Additionally the paper describes how the selection of tools and models fostered dialog between two groups of distinctly different backgrounds and provides a proposed roadmap for robust system design, development and future work.

Participatory ergonomics for psychological factors evaluation in work system design

It is a well recognized understanding that workers whose voice needs to be heard should be actively encouraged as full participants and involved in the early design stages of new ergonomic work system which encompass the development and implementation of new tools, workplaces, technologies or organizations. This paper presents a novel participatory strategy to evaluate three key psychological factors which are respectively mental fatigue, spiritual stress, and emotional satisfaction in work system design based on a modified version of Participatory Ergonomics (PE). In specific, it integrates a PE technique with a formulation view by combining the parallel development of PE strategies, frameworks and functions throughout the coverage of the entire work system design process, so as to bridge the gap between qualitative and quantitative analysis of psychological factors which can cause adverse or advantageous effects on worker's physiological and behavioral performance.

Configuration Model for Automating Work System Design

The design of an automation work system involves important choices concerning the type of system process as well as the condition of the process. These are based on the requirements from the user. This work provides the development of configuration model for automating the design of work system. The model consists of the extraction and execution process of user requirements. It begins with the identification of the requirement statement. Once identified, the statement is extracted and sorted accordingly into process type, number of item count and condition of the process. Currently, the model considers simple sorting and basic assembly process. The model continues to the selection of system action and system component. At the end of the work, the user requirements are transformed into a set of system model and eventually provide the desired system specification. At this stage, the model is represented in a symbolic flow process.

Building Community Pharmacy Work System Capacity for Medication Therapy Management

Questions within and outside of the pharmacy profession frequently arise about a community pharmacy's capacity to provide patient-care services and maximize contributions to public health. It is surmised that community pharmacy locations must possess specific attributes and have identifiable resources within the location to effectively initiate and optimize their capacity to deliver patient care services in conjunction with medication distribution and other services. The purpose of this paper is to describe three research domains that can help pharmacies make the transition from "traditional" business models to "patient care centered" practices: (1) Work System Design, (2) Entrepreneurial Orientation, and (3) Organizational Flexibility. From these research domains, we identified 21 Work System Design themes, 4 dimensions of Entrepreneurial Orientation, and 4 types of Organizational Flexibility that can be used in combination to assist a practice location in transforming its business model to a "patient care centered" practice. The self-assessment tools we described in this paper could help realign an organization's activities to initiate and optimize capacity for patient care.
 
 Type: Idea Paper

Study and analysis of occupational risk factors for ergonomic design of construction worksystems

Manual material handling (MMH) is unavoidable because of the nature of jobs or tasks as and man-machine interfaces in a construction worksystem. Data were collected from six strata of workers viz., masons, mason helpers, carpenters, welders, gas cutters and ground-level helpers (259 out of 700 workers) from a construction site of a steel plant located in India to analyze different types of occupational risk factors, such as awkward posture, repetitive movements and others associated with MMH activities to assess their impact on musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). It is essential that these risk factors are required to be under control through application of ergonomics-based design approaches for construction worksystem. In this context, multinomial logistic regression analyses were used to identify the significant risk factors among the workers. The results shows that masons, mason helpers, carpenters, welders/gas cutters and ground-level helpers are greatly affected by static body posture, type of tools used, excessive stress due to repetition, awkward postures and extreme climate, respectively. Appropriate preventive and corrective measures are suggested for minimization of risks associated with such jobs/tasks to improve health and performance of the workers.

Biomechanical modelling and evaluation of construction jobs for performance improvement

Occupational risk factors, such as awkward posture, repetition, lack of rest, insufficient illumination and heavy workload related to construction-related MMH activities may cause musculoskeletal disorders and poor performance of the workers, ergonomic design of construction worksystems was a critical need for improving their health and safety wherein a dynamic biomechanical models were required to be empirically developed and tested at a construction site of Tata Steel, the largest steel making company of India in private sector. In this study, a comprehensive framework is proposed for biomechanical evaluation of shovelling and grinding under diverse work environments. The benefit of such an analysis lies in its usefulness in setting guidelines for designing such jobs with minimization of risks of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and enhancing correct methods of carrying out the jobs leading to reduced fatigue and physical stress. Data based on direct observations and videography were collected for the shovellers and grinders over a number of workcycles. Compressive forces and moments for a number of segments and joints are computed with respect to joint flexion and extension. The results indicate that moments and compressive forces at L5/S1 link are significant for shovellers while moments at elbow and wrist are significant for grinders.

Analysis and ergonomic improvement of working postures in cast house work station using JACK modelling

This paper presents the ergonomics design of work system which is a prerequisite for better safety, health and productivity of industrial workers. The awkward working postures adopted by the operators in cast house operations has been observed and analysed using photographic analysis, line diagram techniques and Ovako Working Posture Analysis System (OWAS). The awkward working postures leads to discomfort, inconvenience and risk of injuries and illness to workers. Various anthropometric measurements of workers and postures in various activities are collected and analysed to improve the working conditions. The cast house work system model is developed and simulated in the computer-aided ergonomics assessment platform JACK 5.1 with virtual workers with their specific anthropometric variables. An ergonomic work system specifying changes in the work procedures, work norms and ergonomic interventions has been proposed. A new control board with sit stand chair has been suggested which improves comfort to the operators.