hello and welcome you to this course applied ergonomics my name is ankur gupta and i am

faculty in the school of mechanical sciences at indian institute of technology bhubaneshwar

i and doctor shantanu bhattacharya who is professor in the department of mechanical

engineering indian institute of technology kanpur will cover this course this is the

first lecture out of approximate thirty lectures ah decided for this course i have collected

the matter ah for teaching this course from various sources such as books papers internet

search so on so forth in order to make this whole matter easier to understand for all

students irrespective of kind of disciplines of engineering and related streams

so we have added facts figures graffiti daily life examples and try to present the matter

in lovely manner so i hope you will like this course so ah before introducing the whole

syllabus ah which we are going to cover in this course let us start with taking a most

common example ah suppose ah you have been given an assignment to design a chair so what

will be your approach what are the factors that you will be considering in order to design

a chair so ah as you can see from this figure ah that has been put for ah better ah visualization

of this designing a chair so what will happen if the seat becomes too

deep what will happen if seat is too low and what difficulty will a user face when elbow

rest is too high so as you can see ah in fact you can visualize all this situation in this

figure shown so ah when seats are too high the feet can no longer be used to extend the

base of support beyond the base of chair so these all sort of mismatches ah cause ah chronic

problems like lower back pain etcetera lets have a another example ah the figure in fact

the picture that we are seeing here after designing a chair which is ergonomically perfect

user sits and starts working for a prolong period of time

so ah please see this picture in which a lady is sitting in chair doing her work this is

the most common situation where ah which everybody faces maintaining a wrong posture ah while

working for continuous hours ah may lead to ah neck pain wrist pain and back pain so this

is sort of musculoskeletal disorders which may affect muscles tendons joints ligaments

and nerves ah can be counted among the among the main reasons for sick leaves in industrialized

countries and in fact ah there is a one of the most promising situation when people used

to do work in in front of computer so those computer work stations are often

at the top of one smile ah as an example but also you can consider as a microscopic work

stations carry the risk of staring the backs and next neck of their users so for a prolong

period of time if you are working in front of any machine lets say computer so ah that

constant posture will give you a lot of disorders in fact this musculoskeletal disorder is one

of the famous ah disorder now it is so this anthropometric mismatches it can have serious

consequences for health and efficiency in fact i have ah put one more interesting picture

that you can see ah from the slide that ah in which a son is asking to his father that

what is ergonomy so father replies that son ah its making children tall enough not to

have dads bend so much so ergonomics is about taking care of user

difficulties or in other words analyzing the factors responsible for decreasing the system

performance and work on those aspects thereby making system completely efficient so now

ah after taking these examples we will start ah the about discussion about discussing the

ah overview of this particular course ergonomics so now we come to understand the definition

of ergonomics ergonomics is basically composed of two greek words the first word is ergo

which means work and second word is nomos which means study or laws

so as a as a combination of these two words we can ah state the definition of ergonomics

as study of the work and as far as its definition is concerned so it has the scientific discipline

concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system

and the profession that applies theory principles data and methods to design in order to optimize

human wellbeing and overall system performance so overall its purpose is to improve the system

performance by improving the human machine and environment interaction so this basically

ah the first time that ergonomic word was used by w jastrzebowski in a polish newspaper

which was in eighteen fifty seven so in fact in the u s ah that particular ergonomics is

understood as a human factors engineering so human factor engineering and human factors

have been closed synonyms european ergonomics has its root in work physiology and biomechanics

and work system design also so human factors on the other hand ah originated

from research in experimental psychology where the focus was on human performance and system

in fact system design also so but there are several other names ah such as engineering

psychology and more recently cognitive engineering and cognitive system engineering ah the later

emphasizes the importance of human information processing for our size so despite the difference

between human factor and ergonomics in the type of knowledge and designed philosophy

ah so basically the approaches ah these two approaches are coming closer

so ah as per the interaction of computers in the work space ah is going on increasing

so ah basically to solve a problem that is related to computer work places and ergonomist

ah must be able to identify the problem analyze it and suggest the improvement in the form

of a ah a particular optimized designed solution so ah in a nutshell we can say that ah the

primary purpose of human factors study and ergonomics is design so a ergonomics should

be a good designer in order to have a solution to provide a solution in order to improve

their performance of any system so the course sciences from which ergonomics is drawn our

psychology ah anatomy ah biomechanics some sort of physiology physics and physics mainly

ah concerning with the mechanics and environmental physics and obviously engineering

so the ah practitioners of ergonomics an ergonomist contribute to the design and evaluation of

task jobs products environment and system in order to make them compatible with the

needs and ability and limitation of the people so overall this ergonomics is all about improving

the system by involving themselves in the loopholes and ah the errors that has been

caused previously in the system so its all about improving the errors in the system and

ah provided a efficient way of doing work so as you can see from this circle this particular

ergonomics is in the centre and the product as well as product manufacturing is concerned

if you are performing any task if you are in an organization and you are dealing with

a team if you are ah living in a in any kind of environment whether its real or virtual

or if you are sitting in a chair and performing your job so these all areas whether it be

a product manufacturing task performance organization dealing environmental ah interaction and job

ah ah doing job so these all components ah belonging to ergonomics

so everywhere it is a need to improve the performance so where the system performance

is coming into picture ergonomic is there ok so now ah we have to understand the problems

and corresponding knowledge ah arising from the introduction of ah several work station

lets say machine in the work place so ah we have lot of problems while working whether

we are sitting in a room or we are performing a job ah in any organization

so if we are facing a problem in a work posture you have you should have a knowledge which

ah which is required to solve the problems lies in the area of biomechanics if you are

if you are tackling the problem with the size of the strewn characters contrast and colours

so you have to gain knowledge ah in order to solve that particular problem the knowledge

is required of fusion research and perception if you are ah facing troubles with environmental

factors so you have to have knowledge of noise and

environmental stresses if you have ah dealing with the problem in designing a new system

so you have to to make yourself aware of the systems design if you are ah dealing with

any problem solving ah at work so you have should have a knowledge towards cognitive

work analysis and task analysis so all sorts of area which ah which are related ah to problem

solving so as a as a term being provided so ah those areas like biomechanics work physiology

cognitive engineering dealing with the physical work environment

so those areas as a whole if you want to give a particular name so that name will be ergonomics

since these are in the applied area so the whole term that we can give ah as a as a substitute

of all these areas is applied ergonomics so these are all the areas if you are sitting

in front of computers or you are tackling any machine so analysis of human machine interface

requires inter disciplinary knowledge of ah all these areas ah such as biomechanics cognitive

psychology system design methodology and ah as well as physical ah factors also

so now as far as implementation of ergonomic in system design is concerned so it should

make the system work better by eliminating undesirable uncontrolled aspects such as fatigue

inefficiency accidents or injuries or user difficulty so ah inter disciplinary knowledge

is required in this ergonomic design ah for the following reasons the first kind of reason

may be ah in fact this ah ah the following reasons ah like to formulate system goals

to understand functional requirements to design a new system to analyze a system and to implement

a system so overall aim is to make the system better

by eliminating undesirable uncontrolled aspects such as ah those have been listed down like

if some work is if you are working for a prolong period of time and fatigue arises so you have

to take care of those aspects and you have to provide the solution if you are inefficient

in fact any of the aspect ah such as human machine or ah environment so if three s are

leading to ah to have inefficiency of the system so we need to take care of those aspects

and in most in most of the cases most in industries accidents and injuries are also bit prominent

so we have to ah eliminate those factors in order to avoid accidents and injuries and

we have to also take care of user user difficulties so ah in fact this human factors we have to

ah study and this is synonymous with ergonomics so in europe ah that particular term is known

as human factors engineering and as far as this u s terminology is concerned ah the word

is ergonomics so the study ah the topics are which have been covered are more or less same

but the names are different so ah since we are we are trying to understand

this ergonomics so ah the reason ah we have to make it more clear that why we are focusing

towards system performance and ah various areas deliberately we are putting into ah

study these diversified topics which as a which in a combination is making ah particular

course so ah since like in nineteen seventy nine the various human related disasters have

contributed to public awareness ah about the importance of ergonomics and human factors

so there are various kinds of disasters that have happened because of the human errors

and thats why the focus of human being is now ah is to is to find out those factors

and ah provide a possible solutions so that that human error can be minimized so there

are various accidents which i have listed down so a three mile island nuclear power

plant accident which has happened in nineteen seventy nine near harrisburg pennsylvania

there is another kind of ah human related disaster which is bopal pesticide plant union

carbide company ah which has happened in nineteen eighty four challenger space shuttle ah in

nineteen eighty six above florida and other kind of explosion ah have happened in chernobyl

nuclear powerplant ah nuclear plant explosion exxon valdez valdez oil split this has happened

in nineteen eighty nine prince william Sound alaska and in two thousand three ah the disaster

has happened ah the colombia space shuttle so these all disasters were the results of

human errors ah mostly caused by inadequate attention to ergonomics and human factors

in system design and related management and obviously caused by flaws in decision by human

being so ah in fact if we go in the history so ah the human factors immersed as a discipline

after world war second so in u s many problems were encountered in the sue of sophisticated

equipments such as air planes radar and sonar sonar stations and tanks as well

so ah sometimes these problems caused human errors with grave consequences for example

ah during the korean war more pilots were killed during the training than in actual

war activities so this surprising finding led to a review of the design of airplanes

as well as procedures and strategies in operation so ah several issues related to the design

or ergonomics were brought up like how can information be better displayed so that pilots

can quickly understand what the situation is and as far as this these disasters are

concerned so how can controls be integrated with the

task that they were intuitive and easier to handle so these all ah research have emphasized

the human ah emphasized the study towards human ah factors involvements so much research

was done in human factors engineering to support new designs and in fact there are several

government agencies also which have sponsored research on civilian applications of human

factors engineering so in fact in the u s there are many examples like the federal highway

ah administration ah which is for the design of highways and road signs nasa for human

capabilities and limitations in space and another agency is that the national highway

traffic safety administration ah which is taking care of design of cars including crash

worthiness and effects of drugs and alcohol on driving

so ah these are all the factors which are ah related to the human activities as well

as those human ah those related to the interaction between human and machine so ah based on that

ah there are some flaws which has been occurred and which has been ah converted to several

disasters and accidents as well so ah this is just because of the ah inadequate attention

to the ergonomical factors as well as ah human factors in designing as well as ah the response

which we have ah given and that particular required type

so that all sorts of things ah which includes ah the ah human decision incapabilities as

well as inadequate information that has been provided to ah to run the system so these

systems as a whole ah and in fact the study of those informations adequate information

and decision making those comes in the study of this particular course ergonomics so these

are the disaster that i have listed down ah which will ah which will ah give you an insight

that if the proper attention or proper ah system design is not performed

so what can what maximum can happen so it may lead to heavier disasters in terms of

ah accidents and injuries ah ah which is which is very unfortunate and these ah these in

fact disasters that i have listed down have ah have taken many lives so such a important

thats why the study of ergonomics is important ah because in in worst cases ah it may lead

to ah heavier damages so ah now we come to the ah course outline where i will list down

ah the topics that we are going to cover in whole syllabus of applied ergonomics

so first is introduction and human machine system then we will proceed to ah physical

ergonomics then we will discuss cognitive ergonomics some of the biomechanics part which

is directly related to the study of ah the stresses and forces ah causing damage to a

certain part of the body we will also discuss of the physical work environment ah because

this work environment is very much necessary ah to study and to know so the awareness of

the environment where we are working is at most important

some of the tools and techniques which is which has been explored so far in the regime

of this applied ergonomics so that we will discuss and some of the research methodologies

that has been utilized in order to perform research in ergonomics area and lastly we

will discuss some occupational safety and health so these in a nutshell ah we will be

covering these topics ah in this particular applied ergonomics course ok so ah that was

the slight introduction of this course now we will go towards overview of ergonomic course

in which ah we will initiate with the brief history of ergonomics

so ah it has been quoted in vedhas that a disease in human being is caused by misuse

of the body and problem is usually ah three fold involving body mind and the spirit out

of the harmony with the existing environment so almost every introductory lecture or a

chapter in ergonomics explains that word ergonomic comes from word ah ergon and nomos so which

means ah work study or some sort of physical laws also so technology was also well developed

in ah ancient greece it means because this particular ergonomic word has been originated

from ah greek dictionary so although ah not many text are available

about the technological knowledge of the time but the archeological findings of objects

of everyday use ah which maybe tools buildings ships statues or even automatic mechanism

constitute ah valuable signs ah of high technological level achieved at in fact achieved by ancient

greeks so there is a strong evidence that ancient greeks design was human centered so

ah but the credit goes to the ah wojciech jastrzebowski in eighteen fifty seven which

ah most of the book have referred as a father of word ergonomics

so the word ergonomics was coined by british scientist k f h murrell and entered the english

language in nineteen forty nine so the statues and paintings indicate that ancient greeks

had a good knowledge of anthropometry ah we will discuss in detail what is anthropometrys

all about and in fact we have some separate topic to discuss about this anthropometry

so ah so there are various researchers and researchers basically ah have contributed

directly or indirectly towards this ergonomics ah

so one of the hypocrites who was father of medical science ah developed concrete a recommendation

for surgeons work place so in fact ah the great hypocrites suggest that a surgeon may

be either standing or sitting depending on the types of operation but he always has to

adopt the most comfortable posture so having describing these postures ah hypocrites ah

determines the relative position of the surgeons the patient and the source of light both natural

or artificial ah light so in order to facilitate the operation and

avoid glare so in some text he also suggested about the tools that tools have to be placed

near to the operating hand of the surgeon so ah but at the same time they must not hinder

the movement of surgeon so ah hypocrites also suggest that surgical tools should have such

a shape size weight and construction so as to promote ease of use so these all things

that has that has been already been done in three seventy b c and we are ah in fact the

following the same protocol and strategies that have been provided with the our ancient

researchers so ah this properly ah in fact the although

the word ergonomic has has come in this century but the work has already been ah done by our

ancient researchers so the list is big so hypocrites aristotle leonardo da vinci and

many more so we all know we all are aware of the leonardo da vinci work so in which

he has worked a lot and documented his findings ah on the anthropometry so that was history

ah that was a brief history in fact and so we are ah there are various key areas which

as a as a sub division of ergonomic course so the ergonomics can be sub divided in several

key areas so it will be anthropometry in which anthropometry is again a greek word which

ah consist of basically two greek words ah anthropo and metron so it means measurement

of man and women ah we will be describing detail ah the anthropometric

analysis also in human oriented design ah topic physical ergonomics cognitive ergonomics

organizational ergonomics and physical work environment so these are the following key

areas which we will discuss in detail in later slides so this physical ergonomics basically

also covers subtopics such as anatomy biomechanics physiology and it also includes some sort

of psychology so in a nutshell we will ah go ah to understand

ah those sub topics so first we will try to understand what is this physical ergonomics

so this physical ergonomics is concerned with the human anatomical anthropometric physiological

and biomechanical characteristics as they relate to physical activities so ah in a generalized

sense if you perform any work any work ah which is of which is related to ah putting

physical efforts so the what are the effects ah what are the effects of that particular

work on your body so study of these effects on your body and

its positive and negative effects ah when we do study that study comes in the physical

ergonomics so the relevant topics may include working postures so all of us work in a certain

posture and but if that posture if we are maintaining for a prolonged period of time

so it may lead to some sort of disorders and diseases ah other physical efforts may include

material handling repetitive moments work related musculoskeletal disorders work place

layout safety and health and related to temperature and vibration also

so these all sort of physical efforts and related study comes in this physical ergonomics

so ah there are basically few important terms which ah in a in a general comes in this physical

ergonomics so ah these are the anthropometry physiology biomechanics and anatomy so anthropometry

is as a definition wise if we have to give a one statement so we will describe as a scientific

study of the measurement and proportion of the human body and its what is its relation

to ergonomics so it involves collecting statistics or measurements

relevant to the human body which we call as a anthropometric data so this data is usually

displayed as a table of results diagram or graph so this anthropometric data is usually

very important for designers and architects another terminology is physiology so as a

definition wise we can state that its a branch of biology that is concerned with vital processes

of living organisms and how their constituents tissues and cells function

so ah again ah the relation to the ergonomics is like those physiological problems occur

when the body is required to do too much work so if we are involved in some continuous hour

of working so and in fact we are not maintaining the proper posture so ah in fact we can say

that we are working awkwardly or working under bad environmental conditions so that physiological

problems mostly occur so the design of a system should should be ah considering to avoid those

problems the next important term is biomechanics so biomechanics is nothing but a study of

mechanical laws which is relating to the movement or structure of various parts of the body

so its its relation to ergonomics is ah we have we can just model muscles with forces

and calculate phase to minimize work done another important term is anatomy so in anatomy

we study the ah various body parts body structure of human being in fact and other living organisms

also especially as revealed by dissection and separation of the parts so ah in order

to improve the efficiency of the work this study of anatomy is needed so these topics

ah will be explained in details in in coming lectures

so ah like what is ergonomics and what are the sub topics that could be possibly covering

in this particular course so another question arises here as why we are going to study this

physical ergonomics so ah in industries or in any manual work lets say if you can see

this example or in fact this figure so a last number of occupations require workers to expand

a physical energy to perform their job so manual labour is primary ah work activity

ah in industries such as constructions agriculture mining and lot of manufacturing activities

and other logistic activities are there so these work situations include a significant

amount of physical work which may include lifting carrying load from one place to another

other manual handling task ah which include a sufficient significant amount of lifting

carrying and other manual handling task involving tools parts packages materials and containers

so all those ah work which involves manual labour

so after continuous and repetition of that work that stress appears and that leads to

some sort of disorders so so thats why the the study of this particular physical ergonomics

is very much important in order to have a survival of ah workers in an industry so another

topic is that we are going to cover a cognitive ergonomics so a cognitive ergonomics is ah

the way we can understand ah ah so in a general those cognitive activities are when you read

something when you write when you listen something when you speak when you think when you learn

something in fact when you ah design something or when you calculate something

so those all the activities the which takes assistance of brain that is coming in the

cognitive activities and the study related to this is known as cognitive ergonomics so

cognitive ergonomics is concerned with the capabilities and limitations of the human

brain and we also do study of sensory system which is directly contributing to perform

any activity and that is deciding your course of action so all sort in that cognitive ergonomics

we we will covering information processing model as well as the description of various

ah parts of the human sensory system this cognitive ergonomics considers the how

the human mind perceives its environment and process information so the relevant topics

which which we will consider ah for discussion discussion ah are mental work load decision

making skilled performance human computer interaction human reliability work stress

and training as you may relate to human systems design so all sorts of activities ah which

are ah done with the help of brain ah comes in this cognitive activities and we we try

to explore this in a much much explicit way so nowadays cognitive ergonomics ah is becoming

much more important ah in fact than physical ergonomics because ah the environment of doing

work is ah the shifting towards towards the utilization of brain rather than seeking for

manual efforts so ah because of the several trends in industries and technology this cognitive

ergonomics is becoming increasingly important ah has become increasingly important ah relative

to the physical ergonomics as well as we are shifting towards mechanization and automation

in physical task which requires workers to monitor uncontrolled processes that were previously

performed manually so as well as increased use of technologically

sophisticated equipment that is cognitively more challenging to operate maintain and repair

so why the the reason why ah which is giving more important ah towards the study of cognitive

ergonomics are these the another topic that we are going to cover as a organizational

ergonomics so ah what this organizational ergonomics is all about it is concerned with

the operation of socio technical systems including their organizational structures policies and

process so the relevant topics in this organizational

ergonomics are communication the crew resource management work design design of working times

team work participatory design community ergonomics cooperative work new work paradigms virtual

ergonomics virtual organization sorry and telework and quality management so these all

the topics that in fact the all the sort of activities that are being performed in an

organization and that are directly or indirectly affecting the performance of that particular

organization comes in this organizational ergonomics

the next topic ah that we will be covering as as a physical work environment so the study

related to physical work environment why this physical work environment study is necessary

ah because ah whether work is a physical or it is related to any mental work so it is

performed in certain kind of environment so by making the physical components of the work

as comfortable and and distracting as possible so better job satisfaction and greater productivity

are encouraged so in fact ah this environment is playing a very important role in this system

performance so in that work environment we will ah in fact we have discretized that work

environment into three aspects first is visual environment second is auditory environment

third is climate control so in that visual environment ah ah we will

discuss about the physics of the light we will also discuss about the visual performance

visual activity and other sorts of defects also we will be discussing the lighting system

ah what could be the proper lighting ah a particular environment should have in order

to a better ah working environment as well as auditory environment is concerned so ah

we have to take care of the noise level and obviously that is permissible noise and we

have to take care of noise control activities so that we will discuss in detail ah what

are the factors responsible for this noise control and effects of the noise as well and

we will also discuss ah thermo regulation and what the effect of the heat stress and

code stress over the human body and what is the reaction of that human body towards ah

that reduced or ah higher temperature because ambient is very much necessary in order to

have a in order to provide a best performance so another topic which we are dealing towards

ah this course accomplishment is occupational safety and health so in that occupational

safety ah occupational safety is concerned with the avoidance of industrial accidents

so ah basically this occupational safety and health is a important national in fact global

issue that affects virtually every person who works there are several ah federal agencies

established to address these issues ah which are ah o s h a osha form is occupational safety

and health association and one kind of federal agency is n i o s h whose full from is national

institute for occupational safety and health ah whose responsibility is to engage in research

training and education in the area of occupational safety and health

so ah there are two aspects of this particular thing occupational safety and occupational

health so occupational safety is is related to the ah study which deals with the factors

that avoids industrial accidents and like occupational health is also there which is

concerned with avoiding diseases and disorders caused by exposure to hazardous materials

or conditions so ah these conditions most often develop after a prolong period of exposure

and it may take years before some terms reveal the on set of the melody

so and this occupational safety this is a one time event that cause injury or fatality

so these issues need to be addressed because life is very much important ah so those were

all about the brief description of the topics that we are going to cover in the ah next

stage of this course as we are proceeding so the matter to read i have just listed down

some of the books there are many books based on not exactly on the ergonomics but the many

books are available ah with some other names because this is a completely inter disciplinary

subject so ah mostly ah the matter you will be getting in the form of engineering psychology

human factors engineering measurement of human ah in fact measure of man and woman and cognitive

ergonomics so ah i have collected matter from various

sources ah and i would like to special thanks to google that have given a lot of freedom

ah for the matter to read and understand so these are all the books which you can ah spend

time in order to understand in a better way ah this particular courses and the topics

affiliated so with this i would like to finish ah this first lecture in which some introduction

has been covered i hope the content discussed so far have given you some idea about the

that particular particular word ergonomics so we will initiate ah with the description

of various sub topics to be covered in this course as well as the human machine interaction

in detail in next lectures thank you