Ergonomics—costs and benefits☆
Introduction
Historically, present day ergonomics evolved from wartime requirements to ensure the ability of operators to control weapon systems or interpret information from newly developed electronic displays and communication systems such as radar. The emphasis was, therefore, primarily on improving the performance of given man–machine combinations, rather than producing improvements in efficiency measured in terms of value added per man hour.
This attitude is still prevalent today, coupled in some quarters with the idea that ergonomics is some form of welfare service to be provided for the employee by improving his comfort, health or safety. Indeed, although financial savings may be shown to accrue from applying ergonomics to job or equipment redesign, they have seldom been the reasons for establishing an ergonomics service or department within an organisation. Thus the USA armed services, possibly the most extensive users of ergonomics data in the western world, require compliance with their human engineering standard, MIL STD 1472, to:
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achieve satisfactory performance by operator, control and maintenance personnel;
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reduce skill requirements and training time;
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increase the reliability of personnel-equipment combinations;
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foster design standardisation within and among systems.
In many cases these criteria are sufficient justification for the employment of ergonomics, since many data show that designing work methods, equipment and environments to suit the capacities of users greatly improves their performance, comfort and health. However, this approach, qualitative rather than quantitative, coupled with the as yet limited industrial application of ergonomics, has resulted in a paucity of data on the financial benefits of ergonomics. With the current preoccupation with production efficiency, design rationalisation and cost–benefit studies of alternative designs and processes, the subject is ill-equipped to refute allegations that financially there is no benefit to be had from ergonomics, or even to provide evidence of economic advantages to justify the inclusion of an ergonomist on a design team. Nonetheless, such questions are increasingly being asked.
Whether they should be asked is debatable, but to answer them requires evidence derived from the sort of ‘before and after’ comparison normally associated with work study techniques or more recently with value analysis programmes. Few such studies have been documented; a review in Whitfield (1962) covered the handful of validation trials in the literature at that time, and a more recent extensive review (Slade, 1969) has added few more cases.
Not only are examples scarce, but few that have been published include economic data. This reflects the difficulty of converting the usual ergonomic criteria of human performance into costs, for example when reducing the incidence of mistakes or accidents made by a process operator to a monetary value. Not only this, but performance gains shown during comparison trials under carefully controlled conditions may be confused by other effects in actual use or by shop-floor conditions, or the criteria used during the comparison trial in a laboratory may prove unsuitable or meaningless in an industrial situation. Apart from these difficulties, the ramifications of industrial bonus systems or the results of ‘productivity bargaining’ over proposed changes in working methods can obscure potential savings when put into practice.
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Savings from equipment redesign
Faced with such complications, it is not surprising that many ergonomic programmes do not continue beyond giving advice during the design stage. Indeed to argue that funds be allocated for a post-design evaluation of ergonomic improvements implies a lack of confidence that would dissuade some managers from employing ergonomics in the first place.
Nevertheless, examples are available. In a comparison between an old and a redesigned speed control for an industrial sewing machine (Singleton, 1960),
Accidents and mistakes
The foregoing examples clearly show savings in time resulting in savings in money. There are many cases of course, where ergonomic improvements to tasks or equipment do not result in savings in time, or increases in work rate, for example when reducing the incidence of accidents or mistakes.
In the USA there have been a number of investigations into the cost of accidents, and the West German Iron and Steel Federation has also sponsored a research programme on “The Direct and Indirect Costs of
Environmental redesign
Despite the large number of applications of ergonomic principles in the fields of lighting, noise protection and heating and ventilation—whether by ergonomists or not—there is no greater number of documented examples of financial benefits in this area than in others. Some of the difficulties of costing improvements in production resulting from changes in lighting levels or other environmental factors have been discussed (Manning, 1968; Stone, 1968). A major problem is the difficulty of
Costs and contribution of the ergonomics team
In some applications, particularly those where ergonomists are involved in the design of a new piece of equipment from the start, it is not possible to show real or potential reductions in errors or improvements in production. Thus when validating the redesign of the EMIdec 2400 digital computer (Whitfield, 1964) it was found that the improvements to the design had not resulted in a reduction in errors, although it is possible that a comparative trial run over a longer period might have done
Costs of experimental work
Whilst the above argument may be accepted for routine design advice, the costs of an ergonomic study involving a research programme may, at first glance, seem formidable. With less money being freely available for research, particularly in industry, financial justification for such work is increasingly important. One stumbling block is that the results of engineering research often have wide application, whereas ergonomic research tends to relate to one particular problem or project, resulting
Conclusions
In the introduction to this paper it was admitted that there is a lack of data on the costs and benefits arising from the application of ergonomics. The cases included in this review show the scope of what is available and demonstrate that financial benefits can and do accrue from the redesign of equipment and tasks using ergonomic principles. Unfortunately those included are almost the total of those available in the literature. Possibly they represent but the tip of an iceberg, the greater
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First published in Applied Ergonomics 1 (2), 79–84.