How can Manufacturing Human Factors Help save a Company: Intervention at High and Low Levels
Now that manufacturing has become a respectable topic in industry, an obvious question is how human factors/ergonomics can contribute to the improvement of manufacturing. The traditional route for ergonomics intervention has been a Project route, with a set of objectives agreed between the human factors engineer and people within the company. Projects, however, do not ask the question of whether human factors intervention is likely to have an impact on the company's strategic objectives, for example, remaining in the manufacturing of a particular product. Case studies in a variety of industries are used to contrast the project approach with a more strategic approach. It is concluded that the project may represent sub-optimization in that a successful outcome of the project may have no impact upon company survival without a careful examination of the strategic plans of the company.