Proceedings of the 21st Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2021)

This communication aimed at identifying the different classes of microproject, a specific type of situated design performed by users facing an unpredictable situation of great uncertainty. Our hypothesis is that microprojects work differently, depending on the heterogenous actors and the intermediary objects involved. The research presented three case studies carried out on oil extraction platforms in Brazil, focusing on cargo-handling work. Each case presented unique characteristics, which were analyzed and compared in order to understand the situated design process comprehensively. It was observed that the situated design process has different characteristics depending on the level of interdependence of actors involved in solving the problem. The greater the distance between the realms of the actors involved in the design, the greater the need for formal decision procedures and the use of intermediary objects in situated design. Therefore, design must provide material (equipment, zones, routes) and immaterial (competences, intermediary objects) resources for action and for the situated design.

Given the specificity and complexity of activities related to the Integrated Operations (IO) in well interventions, many studies focused on the development and use of information and communication technologies, with fewer investigations addressing the human and organizational factors related to the actual work of its different actors. To overcome this gap this manuscript present and analyze data that demonstrates the main characteristics of well intervention team meetings and aspects that facilitate or hinder IO work. The strength of this study refers to the generate knowledge about actual work situations related to discussion spaces that bring together different specialists around well intervention projects. The lack of another published research focusing on the sharing of information and the exchange of experience in IO at drilling operations reinforces the relevance of the results of this paper for Ergonomics.

The notions of human ecology and ergonomics were linked by Pierre Cazamian, one of our discipline founders [4]. The concept of sustainable development leads us to consider nature as part of the environment that conditions human work, but also as one of the dimensions of environment affected by human work. The aim of this communication is to discuss the ways future work will guarantee the survival of life within work systems and between layers of the overall ecosystem [6]. We start from our experiences of two types of interventions: reactive and requirement based classical ergonomic approaches, pulled by industrial and market needs, and prospective ergonomics based on people’s needs approaches [10], inspired by the evolution of human activities in ecovillages and in socio-environmental projects. We find some trends in both contexts related to design, management and field activities and the need to guarantee life in all the ecosystem layers.

The notion of emancipation belongs to a long social tradition, but it is curiously absent from the HF/E community as if it is an outdated ambition. Starting from the idea that emancipation is a heuristic notion for discussing the purposes and mobiles of HF/E, the aim of this communication is to discuss the relationships between emancipation and work. Two main focuses are well identified: emancipation from and within work. But a third focus, still to happen, could be named emancipation by work.

This communication discusses the resulting changes in the field of design project management generated by the industry of the future and its promises, with a special focus on collaborative robotics. Among the guiding issues of this work, we will focus on the importance of including such an intention to cobotize some or all of the tasks initially assigned to human operators, during the strategic stakes of the design process and to instruct and support it by the potential contributions of a bottum up approach centered on the real activities, mobilized and deployed during the realization of the tasks which are objects of cobotization. This discussion is based on an industrial case study, aimed at assisting a finishing workstation (the last stage of a production process) for fragile mechanical parts used in the manufacture of metal parts for the aeronautics sector.

The article’s purpose is to analyze the psychosocial risks involved in the Live Line Electricians (LLE) work and the collective risk management strategies. The research was carried out with workers who perform electrical structures maintenance in an advanced power station belonging to a private sector electric company, located in the countryside of São Paulo/Brazil. For this, it was used as a methodological resource the first stages application of Ergonomic Analysis of Work (AET). Psychosocial risks, also called invisible risk, which generates fear and anxiety, are associated with a job when a large tasks volume are involved, an intensified and dangerous routine, thermal constraints, repetitive movements, great cognitive load for the planning and replanning execution, action synchronicity between the team(s) and assertive and safe decision-making for the preservation of life.

The paper aims to present an analysis about pruning vegetation with hydraulic pole pruner, a task considered critical, performed by Live Line Electricians (LLE). The research was carried out at an advanced power station, located in the countryside of São Paulo/Brazil through the application in Ergonomics, Biomechanics and Cybernetics methods. It was possible to identify the critical determinants of the activity under study through the Activity Ergonomics, as well as to explain the physical issues through the movements simulation (biomechanics) in terms of medium and high pruning that confer bigger postural problems, especially of the trunk and upper limbs, validated by cybernetic analysis (3D), which allowed quantifying such elements in order to create demands for the tools design to alleviate this condition. It is suggested that the articulation between qualitative and quantitative analyses, explained here through the methods triangulation, although anchored in different epistemological keys, provide more complex and broad understandings about the working reality and the possibilities of transformation.

Usability studies are focused on heuristics of efficiency, effectiveness, and completeness. However, they generally ignore the content of the work performed. Seeking to overcome this gap this paper aims to present and discuss the role of participatory ergonomics meetings on the development of an EHR for collaborative care of children and youth. As we will present, the construction of a common world will help integrate users to understand different work situations based on this understanding, they could propose solutions to support different phases of care and embracing different professional worlds. This process was developed based on the knowledge about work situations and the dynamics during the collaborative meeting, but also with the support of Intermediary Objects developed by the ergonomist for this purpose.

Work simulation is a strategy to integrate work knowledge into the design process. Although it a recurrent approach among ergonomists, few paper present information on simulation preparation and the material used. This paper presents a work simulation planning to support forensic ballistics packaging for evidence collected in the crime scene. The study was conducted with the forensic police department of a statue Brazilian Civil police. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, the ergonomist had to restrict their interaction with workers to remote meetings. Based on the initial field study interrupted by the pandemic and remote discussions on work constraints, the ergonomist team develop a design for ballistic evidence packaging and prepared a simulation to test it. The simulation plan presented englobes different materials, intermediary objects designed, workgroup composition. Also is shown the general dynamics, including rules, points of interest, and typical action situations selected for work simulation.

Waste management systems are heavily dependent on the territorial dimensions of waste production from residents and collection and sorting dynamics. Such local anchorage is supposed to be integrated in ergonomic research to improve work conditions and design sustainable work systems. Based on studies led in France and in Brazil, this communication analyzed the effects of the territorial dimensions over the work of the sorters, that raise work systems sustainability challenges for waste sorting facilities in both countries.

Distribution of visual attention in high-risk and dynamic environment is an important issue for safety since missed or delayed information detection is a significant factor of accidents. In complex socio-technical systems operators need to draw their attention on numerous visual displays, yet auditory information from verbal exchanges plays also a major role in the development of their situation awareness. Team leaders may then develop strategies to gather information both from visual and auditory sources. The aim of our study was to identify how team leader’s attention is distributed among visual displays and interactions with team members as a function of their level of performance during a highly demanding situation. Ten leaders from the Diving-Safety Team in French nuclear submarine were equipped with a mobile eye-tracker in a full scale simulator during training sessions. Areas Of Interest were grouped into four categories: technical displays, navigation displays, team members and written documentation. Two critical AOIs related to two failures were analyzed. Our results showed that most part of leaders’ attention was directed toward interface displays (78% of all dwells). Significant differences showed that high-performance leaders performed more frequent visual scanning and were also able to monitor longer and more frequently critical AOI. The allocation of attention showed that high-performance leaders directed more frequently their attention on commandment team members suggesting a higher level of hindsight on the situation. Further research is needed to identify more accurately the distribution of attention between visual and auditory channel in relation with situation awareness.

Cyber-Physical-Social Systems (CPSS) performance for industry 4.0 is highly context-dependent, where three design areas arise: the artifact itself, the human-agent collaboration, and the organizational settings. Current HF&E tools are limited to conceptualize and anticipate future human-agent work situations with a fine-grained perspective. This paper explores how rich insights from work analysis can be translated into formative design patterns that provide finer guidance in conceptualizing the human-agent collaboration and the organizational settings. The current manual work content elicited is disaggregated into functional requirements. Each function is then scrutinized by a multidisciplinary design team that decides its feasibility and nature (autonomy function, human function, or hybrid function). By doing so, we uncover the technical capabilities of the CPSS in comparison with subject-matter experts' work activity. We called this concept technological coverage. The framework thereof allows close collaboration with design stakeholders to define detailed HAT configurations. We then imagined joint activity scenarios based on end-users work activity, the technological capabilities, and the interaction requirements to perform the work. We use a study on technological innovation in the aircraft maintenance domain to illustrate the framework's early phases.

The differential value of an ergonomic intervention is to bring an innovative approach in the models and practices of treatment of risks at work, in the assessment procedures and in the models used for data processing. These procedures are based on an approach to occupational health that must be elaborated by the worker and must also be understood as a construction directly linked to the work context. The ubiquitous approach of the ergonomic intervention presented here was developed and designed as a process of specialized knowledge production in the field of occupational health, specifically in the operational field of the activities of an oil company. The objective of this ergonomic intervention was to transfer the practices, models and strategies developed in the laboratory or from the theory to the practices developed by the workers and the company. A flexible structure was developed according to the new models of workers involved in the field of occupational health.

This paper aims to provide some support for the widespread claim that agroecological transition entails a wide variety of changes for the farmers. It focuses on farmers’ work systems (combining several subsystems: biological and technical, socio-economic, family, and related to the farmers’ characteristics) and shows how agroecological transition deals with every part of these work systems. One case study is used to illustrate how farmers’ concerns, which are drivers of change, are constructed at the interface of these subsystems. The paper focuses on the Chronicle of Change method (Chizallet et al. 2020) to dissect the work subsystems to which the farmer refers in relation to this concern and to analyze how farmers make their work system evolve in the course of their agroecological transition. The perspective of this research paper is to offer tools and methods to support the agroecological transition of farmers in a systemic approach. It is thus shedding light on the transition from a work point of view and not only from a technical point of view.

The creation of collaborative environments is one of the first practices adopted by companies that intend to implement an integrated operation (IO). The participation of ergonomists in a collaborative environment project for the subsea installations sector of a Brazilian oil and gas company and the subsequent space evaluation during operations, prompts reflections on the contributions and limits of this initiative.The research shows that this workplace design, based on a participatory approach, can contribute to greater integrated operations. However, the workplace is only a means, and, in this context, what is at stake is the design of a new work system.

The present context of health crisis and unprecedented lockdown is an opportunity for thinking, position-taking, indignation and controversy. As a social activity, work redefines itself every day, according to circumstances. Work is a central object of ergonomics and ergonomists can learn from crisis: behind the health crisis, we highlight the work crisis. Ergonomics must take part in the social debates that accompany this crisis, and make its contribution to better reconciling the human challenges of work and organizational issues in the future. To do this, we need criteria: the crisis highlights the need to experience the recognized contribution, individually and collectively, of one’s own work to meaningful social issues, and therefore to renovate our approach to occupational health.

During the 1980s and 1990s Argentine economy was unstable until finally in early 2000s the economic model collapsed. People demonstrated in the streets. Many factories closed down or went broke. In 2001, the President resigned. Under urgency and uncertainty a new social movement emerged. Workers could face unemployment developing the so-called recovered factories.In 2020, the pandemic reveals an unpredictable world, where it is no longer possible to rely on structures based on certainties. I resumed my research on recovered factories conducted during 2008/2011, looking for clues, traces and creative practices undertaken by workers in the face of sudden and unexpected events, I chose the terms urgency, uncertainty, inhabiting, trace, prospection and emancipation as useful elements in times of crisis.Thinking about the future of work in the context of a pandemic or crisis led me to analyze the practices carried out in the recovered factories and then address our own practices as ergonomists. I seek through a new theoretical approach to enrich the transition to future work in general and ours in particular.

The relationships between territory and work are still insufficiently explored from the point of view of the work activity [1]. In what way does the territory cease to be only the “ground” where the history of work activities and its protagonists are daily constructed to become a category of analysis?The territory is asymmetric, and it often assumes the status of constraint, as evidenced in the case study in the road passenger transport sector we present here. However, the territory is also acted upon, it is enriched through the actors’ work activity. How does the activity compensate territorial inequalities? How to methodologically apprehend these territorialization processes?The concept of place emerges full of pertinence from this analysis as mediator and the visible side of these processes. Given their heuristic nature, we identify these places as “markers”, material or symbolic, of how the work activity contributes to the reconfiguration of the territory.

The expansion of teleworking, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, places at the center of the research agenda, the possible implications for the teleworker´s health. This research aims to explore the lived experience in reward, social relationships and mental health in Colombian teleworkers, reported in phenomenological interviews, and to compare in which extent such experience matches with the scores obtained in sub-scales of recompense, social support, and the Goldberg general health scale, in a sample of Colombian teleworkers. A convergent mixed method QUAN + QUAL = corroboration, was used. The participants were adults, living in Colombia, with a teleworking contract for more than six months. Recruitment was done through social networks (Facebook and Twitter); a typical case sampling method was used. A comparison of the quantitative and quantitative results was made according to the common concepts identified in the two data sets. We identified in which way the data converge, diverge, or expand the understanding of the results. The quantitative and qualitative results confirmed each other in all cases. The main protective factors for the Colombian teleworker health identified were being able to avoid the use of public transport, saving time, and the comfort and tranquility of work from home. The main risk factors identified were reduction in social activity, reduction in physical activity and overwork.

The social distance imposed by the pandemic required new strategies from experts who support the decision-making for drilling rig operations, guaranteeing the flow of information. However, they have not been shown to ensure the agility provided by physical proximity. This article investigates the limits of remote work and its impact on knowledge transfer during pandemics. Based on the ergonomic work analysis methodology, the research identified that, without face-to-face interaction, the team had to develop new collective and individual strategies to ensure the construction of situational awareness and knowledge transfer. The pandemic situation made it impossible for the ergonomists to monitor the team in person, limiting observation possibilities. The continuity of the research will allow focusing on observing selected events remotely to be validated with the team members involved.

Supporting an organization in its future means betting on its development by building a work use lab experimentation at different levels of its organization. A mission conducted in a company in charge of supporting digital transition of SME is an opportunity to present the multi-scale cooperation device that we implement during twelve months. The productions of the actors involved at each scale highlight the protagonists’ learnings and the development path that open for the organization as whole. In discussion we are exploring the ways and means of an organizational development through a work use lab that setup an ephemeral and transitional learning device whose vocation is to become sustainable.

Industry 4.0 generates risks renewing stakes for design project integrating work activities, as it can be done in activity centered ergonomics and participatory ergonomics. From a case study supporting a design project for a plant of the future assembling metal additive manufacturing processes in aeronautics, this article aims to show the contribution of using typical situations to define requirements for industrial design projects 4.0.The method is based on a construction of the approach, the identification of typical exposure situations (through video and measurement), collective confrontation interviews (using typical situations) similar to reflexive and constructive simulations, and the setting of requirements.Results highlights specific exposure situations during the work, which the interviews made it possible to understand, enabling to collectively debate organisational, technical or social determinants, in order to transform them from the point of view of the work, within the framework of the design project.

In this paper, we analyze the work’s collective dimension of the logisticians dedicated to supporting the offshore drilling oil and gas industry, in the context of Integrated Operations (IO). We approach the work of the logistics team focusing on the articulation and activation of collective dimensions within a Logistic Integration Center.

The innovation of places is a field of knowledge focused on the design and development of destinations such as regions, tourism, national parks, among others. For that, co-creation workshops involving stakeholders were considered. This article aims to provide a greater understanding of the role of boundary objects used in co-creation workshops, where the knowledge of the participants is integrated into the local innovation processes. This is an exploratory case study, applied to a single Brazilian National Park. It was realized that boundary objects are of great relevance since it facilitates the process in which individuals can, together, transform their knowledge. Among the findings is the possibility of generating intangible knowledge about places, strengthening the engagement of different participants during facilitation, generating insights aligned with the objectives of the workshops, and applying individual knowledge throughout the process of collaboration regardless of previous experience in co-creation.

This article aims to study the link between the network organization of an express parcel service and work activity in parcel distribution centers. The increase in parcel flows leads to rationalize production on a national and global scale. The organization on this scale is based on the industrial vision of the network as the processing of flows transiting between sites. However, the final sorting for delivery to the recipient obeys a local territorial rationality. In the delivery agencies, space use and circulation, work organization, work intensity and the physical involvement of workers, all adapt to distribute the parcels over a singular territory, despite the variability of volume or type of parcels. The activity of the workers has a normalizing role that allows adaptation to territorial singularities.

Remote operations started with integrated operations (IO) some years ago where designated tasks and roles were shifted from off- to onshore. Remote operations, however, is more than remote control as the operational model or concept is key: it defines the scope for the tasks to be conducted remotely. With this increased ambition and scope, sociotechnical concerns play an increasingly important role. With increased autonomy and automation in the oil and gas business, the reliance upon digital representations of the process conditions that the center/control room follow up becomes more complex, technically but not the least organizationally and institutionally. Operational, organizational and information infrastructure issues are key considerations for remote operation including employer-employee relationships and collaboration with vendors. How will these new centers differ from traditional control rooms and the previous generation of collaboration centers that came with integrated operations 10–15 years ago? What are the key capabilities around which you build scalability and replicability in the design of such control centers? We discuss and empirically illustrate different configurations of remote operations.

This study aims to reflect on the necessary adjustments in the program’s conduct for monitoring removal and return to work (PAART), considering its principles, the reality, and challenges imposed by the pandemic. This is a report on the PAART experience in a medium- and high-complexity hospital during the pandemic. The program was restructured, given the need to understand work situations from workers’ and managers’ reports and previous knowledge about hospital dynamics. These reports were retrieved by information and communication technologies. A total of 571 workers were included in the PAART, and 277 could be contacted. Work organization relocation and changes in the period resulted in disrupted services, modified work routines and teams, and directly affected the implementation of the PAART. This raised concerns about the contributions of activity ergonomics and work ergonomic analysis in unpredictable work context situations. Also, we asked about the possible outcomes of the PAART if observations and analyses of real work situations were maintained. Despite questionings, we understand that the PAART experience in the pandemic is an opportunity for theoretical and methodological reflections.

To reach their desirable vision of what actors mean by sustainable agri-food systems, transition processes take place in which the work activities evolve. The present paper investigates such an evolution through the conceptual framework of organizational design in ergonomics. It aims to understand how evolves the work of actors involved in the transition towards more “localized” production, distribution and consumption of food. We propose to consider the sustainability transition of agri-food systems as an inter-organizational design process, a process by which people redesign rules that guide coordination between organizations. We approach local food systems at the territorial scale to grasp the news forms of coordination in their cultural, spatial, economic, technical, political and ecological context. We consider the inter-organizational design process as the meso-level of actions, which articulates with the micro-level (work activities) as well as the macro-level (public policies, norms in food consumption). The paper presents the case of the association C, which manages catering for a public organization on the Paris-Saclay Plateau. We investigate the ecosystem of actors of the association C, as well as the way by which the catering manager develops and redesigns coordination at the various levels of actions.

Research institutes seek solutions to reduce the use of pesticides in fruit production. They redesign new orchards, pesticides free (or nearly). It implies new forms of interactions with the local stakeholders as well as a change in the experimental paradigm and the content of work, with a key role of observations on the agroecosystem. This leads us to distinguish two territorial levels: the “ecological one” and the “sector one”. The first is related to the territory as a production environment (e.g. climate, type of soils, plants, animals, growers) whereas the second is related to the territory as a geographical space where different players of a production sector are located. We analyze how these two territorial levels are handled by the experimental stations. We discuss how the change in experimental paradigm brings questions to the experimental stations’ workers, regarding territories issues and suggest that giving more centrality to work activity might create new relations between the stations and their territories.

Ergonomics is currently in the process of building its space as a discipline in energy sector design, as well as in the continuous process industry. This issue emerges from the expectation organizations have in regard to participation and products developed by the discipline in projects. The purpose of this study is to report the participation of a team of ergonomists in an oil platform basic design, discussing ergonomics structuring. To that effect, this study used participant observation as a methodology, as well as data collected along 14 months for this case study. The results show the challenges faced and strategies adopted to integrate remote work to the design dynamics. Even though ergonomics’ scope of action has not yet been clearly understood, it was possible to observe how the practice of the discipline has evolved during this project. This work highlights how ergonomics can potentially help integrate the different rationales which make up the design.

This paper analyzes evidence on how the literature approaches the work dimension in the process of inclusion of autistic people. A bibliographic search was made at different healthcare databases and following the exclusion of the duplicates and applying the inclusion/exclusion criteria 47 papers were reviewed by the authors. This literature review showed that autistic people can be more disadvantaged in the workplace than (other) disabled people which shows that attitudinal barriers can be more limiting than infrastructural ones. Moreover, there is a lot of focus on the autistic worker needing to adapt to work. Studies focusing on workplace changes point to the use of sensory accommodations without describing them. In this aspect, studies based on Activity Ergonomics might strategically fill this gap, since they develop solutions based on actual work situations, including the point of view of autistic workers on the challenges they face in their daily work, as well as on the appropriateness of the accommodations to be developed for them. Given this scenario, and knowing that the inclusion of disabled people is a right, it is a duty of researchers who study and discuss work processes, like ergonomists, to further research how inclusion can be ensured, so that appropriate techniques can be adapted not only for a ‘disability’ but also for individuals. The development of studies that deepen our knowledge of workplace inclusion for disabled people and promote equity is absolutely necessary for the full inclusion of autistic people at work.

I discuss the dilution of responsibility of action and the idea of a symmetrical relationship between artefacts and humans. In doing so, I argue that meaning making is an activity unilaterally performed by agents, leading to an asymmetrical relationship between agents and artefacts. Therefore, the study of the one who is responsible for the action, the meaning-maker (with the capability to act) is crucial for a theory of action responsibility. The latter should not be transferred to derived agents, an abstract brand or impersonal technologies. The study of the origin of actions is crucial for a better understanding of situated cognition in relation to responsibility. Therefore, the role of artefacts in human actions has to be reconsidered, since artefacts acquire functions by means of designing and they do not act for themselves. These issues have consequences for our understanding of situated cognition and for the current debate on responsibility of AI technologies, as well as for work analysis and design.

Ergonomics in design is intended to close the gap between what is designed and the real work. This study seeks to discuss the creation of technical ergonomics requirements for the basic design stage of workshops on offshore platforms. Thus, this paper also intends to show how the ergonomics discipline contributes to integrating knowledge on the real work of the maintenance crew with the design. This case study uses procedures, data collection, and analysis guided by the Ergonomics of the Activity’s theoretical framework, focused on design projects [1]. The results of this research indicate the contribution of ergonomics to improve the work of maintenance crews, which occurred both through the construction of new layout and equipment list, and through the development of technical specifications. Hence, this work points to the need for new studies on platform maintenance work, in addition to studies that deepen the debate on consolidating ergonomics practice in design projects.

Alarm management is a set of processes and techniques aiming to enable alarm systems to support operators for safer and more efficient operations. The consideration of the operational knowledge in the procedures stands as an opportunity and a challenge since it requires specific conditions. This article presents and discusses how the inclusion of debates about real work situations can contribute to the improvement of the solutions proposed by alarm management committees. Qualitative content analysis on meeting minutes and participant observation of an Alarm Management Committee using a report on real work information showed it was used on more than 60% of solutions applied to a gas transfer terminal, indicating a broad application and adoption. Yet, our findings suggest that the debates addressed alarms regarding variability and emerging strategies, and may consider entire subsystems instead of single alarms.

This study aims to reflect on how the work dimension can be considered in Integrated Operations (IO) projects through a work simulation from a participatory ergonomic perspective. This research presents a case study of an Onshore Collaborative Centre (OCC) design, where an Ergonomic Work Analysis and three Ergonomics Simulations cycles were performed to support the discussions with workers and managers to create design solutions. The results show the organization of a participatory ergonomics approach in IO projects, which includes the structuring of the participatory dynamics in the design process from the Ergonomic Work Analysis and Simulations. The simulation is a method that can transform work into an important factor both in modifying the project and in technical choices. It also allows for the inclusion of different actors and their perspectives. However, for the simulation to be an effective means of participation, it is necessary to have an integration between the work analysis and the expectations of the project.

The paper presents a qualitative study on entrepreneurship in the Rocinha slum, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from the perspective of the effectuation approach developed by Saras Sarasvathy. Effectuation is the key for interpreting four case studies focused on the social, economic, and cultural relationships between the slum and the north-eastern region of Brazil – the origin of many of Rocinha’s residents. The interviews indicated the importance of relational links between Rocinha and Northeast of Brazil either in the slum’s economic dynamism or its identity affirmation, an aspect revealed in one interview with an entrepreneur who sends the rent income to relatives in the Northeast, for example. As a possible unfolding of future research, the effectuation approach seems adequate for the study, not only for startups, but also for the operation of such initiatives in those contexts marked by radical uncertainties, as is the Rocinha slum in Rio de Janeiro.

This article sets out the foundations of a prospective approach to work that aims right now to build a desirable world of tomorrow. The postulate is indeed that it is from work and activity that this is achievable. It presents how this proposition accompanies concrete utopias and constitutes a paradigm shift for ergonomics.

The creation of robotic systems demands the formalization of how-to-do rules. However, professional workers interact with the world in a way that goes beyond formal rules, such as when facing unforeseen and context-dependent events. The solution to replace human tasks by robotic systems consists in the creation of “micro-worlds”, which presuppose controlled environments, with fixed rules, in which robots are able to operate successfully. Accordingly, such micro-worlds must be designed, built, supervised, maintained and optimation by (human) roboticists who make sense of what robots must and must not do. To address this interaction between them, this article discusses cases that show how experienced workers use their perceptual skills to anticipate and solve problems on the robots under their supervision. Through the analysis of the “course of action” (Theureau, 2004) of real events, its goal is to show how human activity is directed by getting a sense of the situation during the interaction with the machines and how the context influences such sense. As a result, it contributes with Industry 4.0 in its aim to increase automation to maximum power, enabling robots to perform increasingly complex functions. On the other hand, it argues against its assumption that human performance in automated environments is a residual problem to be solved – i.e., eliminated. The actual challenge is how to design micro-worlds that enable and enhance the human-robot integration in the shopfloor for guaranteeing quality, safety and efficiency.

The purpose of this communication, based on a project which aims to the revival of an ancestral agricultural production in the South of France (the picking of linden flowers), is to discuss territorial project. Territory can be defined as governance concerns of a given space delimited by its borders. But it appears that this agricultural production can be understood as “the making of a milieu” through the work done with the lime. Our hypothesis is that we need to better articulate these two “spheres”, the territory and the milieu, in order to manage projects at the scale of a geographical area.

Driven by digitally enabled machines, robotics and artificial intelligence, the speed and pace at which tasks can be automated are unprecedented. The changes in the nature of the work activity caused by an “automation revolution” is the motto for the current debate on automation and the future of human work. This debate has crystalized, so far, into forecasts estimating the extent to which occupations are “automatable”. But what are the real effects of automation in the content and pace of work? What is the place of the human activity within work environments increasingly automated? Through a research approach from the “point of view of activity”, two studies were designed to investigate these questions. Study 1 was conducted in two cork processing companies, whereas study 2 followed an exploratory strategy with Portuguese experts involved in the design of future automated driving situations. The findings suggest the activity constitutes the critical “link” between the theoretical definition of work automated processes and the real work. But such link remains “hidden” compared with the complexity of the automation apparatus. Diverging from techno-deterministic interpretations, the perspective of our research is to contribute to monitoring the ongoing transformations of work evoked by automation considering the operational leeway for workers develop their experience, preserve their health, and revalue their work practices.

The situation that emerged from recognizing the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 required a university hospital’s efforts to reorganize the work and care activities in this period. This study aims to present actions to support workers’ permanence in the hospital context at work in pandemic times. The development of actions was based on the activity ergonomics and, therefore, recommended recognizing actions in real work situations involving workers directly. The interventions covered 14 sectors, involving 140 workers. During the actions, the team recorded the activities in a field diary to document the care provided and prepared reports with the identified demands, which were organized into five categories: i) information and communication management, ii) the establishment, improvement, or continuous monitoring of protocols, iii) hospital workers’ health care, iv) establishment of collective spaces to refresh and align conducts; and v) adequacy of work conditions and processes. The interventions with hospital workers in the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the exchange of experiences and knowledge between same-sector and inter-sector workers and sharing perspectives regarding work dynamics. The foundation of the actions in activity ergonomics has contributed to increasing the visibility of situations that pre-existed the pandemic and structured a new perspective on health and work in the hospital, recognizing the active participation of workers.

This study aims to analyze airline industry professionals’ work activity in assisting passengers with disabilities in identifying possible service improvements. Semi-structured interviews and observations of airport, airline, and service provider workers’ activity were carried out in 16 airports in the five Brazilian regions. The critical incident methodology was also adopted to map difficulties in providing services to passengers with disabilities and factors that facilitate service and operations. A descriptive, statistical analysis of the participants’ characterization data and thematic analysis of the interviews were performed. The following challenges were identified during the travel cycle: i) situations of non-accountability by families, which requires the follow-up by airline professionals; ii) non-boarding due to medical documentation requirements; iii) lack of follow-up or passengers’ embarrassment due to inadequate communication between professionals; iv) difficulties related to the lack of infrastructure or an insufficient number of employees; v) constraints and conflicts with passengers with disabilities who refuse to comply with security procedures; vi) accidents when boarding wheelchair users; viii) damage and loss of assistive equipment; viii) difficulties in handling situations involving people with mental disorders. Concerning service provision facilitators, people mentioned aspects related to i) airport infrastructure; ii) the training of employees to assist passengers; iii) availability of prior information before boarding. The analysis of airline transport professionals’ activity allowed gathering information to support processes to improve management related to the accessibility, airport infrastructure, assistance equipment, and services provided to passengers with a disability or reduced mobility.

Some changes in the scenario radically transformed the course of work in the days of COVID 19. This paper is based on different testimonies made by different protagonists working at the university: teachers, administrative personal as well as students. These reports were analyzed, considering mainly the relationship between mental health and work, from the theoretical framework of activity ergonomics and psychodynamics at work. The results show different consequences; among then some will be addressed in this text, we highlight: Uncertainty - loss of certainty - if there was any; Dismantling of routines; Installation of doubt regarding many aspects of the work; Relationship with death; Many things taken for granted and immutable become fluid and questionable.

The main proposal of this paper is to discuss questions related to the work of nursing assistants in two different hospitals in Brazil using as a key reference the concepts and methods related to Psychodynamics of Work. Work in caring situations, a typical service relation is, in many situations, treated in a similar rationality as an industry, based on teleological purposes. In fact, this kind of work is not only related to the technical aspects of the professions involved, since it’s meaning is related to compassion and it’s quality depends of cooperation among different actors, including the patient and his family. The results published on this paper are related to what nursing assistants that participated on our study testimony in relation with their working experience.

Fully autonomous systems without any human interventions are not achievable in practice, but one day the levels of autonomy will probably high enough so the system will be considered autonomous for “practical reasons” and the pilots will only intervene very rarely. This will deepen a problem that is already present in current automatic systems, the “out of the loop pilot syndrome”. This paper explores, the paradox of a “pilot for an autonomous system” and how he can build any situation awareness, showing that SA level 2 might be the key for unlocking interventions. It shows also the current conventional solutions for human machine interface design, and proposes a new type of HMI, called Parallel synthetic task.

The teaching work is characterized by a new perspective in academic procedures, based on the intensification of activities and high charge for publication in recognized journals. This paper analyzes teachers’ work in the context of postgraduation higher education in a public university, identifying the main constraints to which this professional category is subjected, especially the evaluation system for intellectual production. The methodology employed can be classified as an exploratory and descriptive case study using Activity-Centered Ergonomics concepts. Data collection includes perception questionnaire, work diary, observation participant and semi-structured interviews applied to all teachers who work in the Production Engineering department of a federal public university located in a medium-sized city in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Results identified the studied teachers' main constraints such as excessive tasks; lack of recognition, collectivity and institutional support; and demand for productivity). In their perception, teachers that don’t work in the postgraduate program are less stressed than those who do, although both groups have physical and mental overloads. Teachers who work in postgraduate school suffer and feel frustrated with the great weight given to publications in detriment of other activities as or more important for teaching work. It should also be noted that there is no enough financial or institutional support to achieve the goals. The evaluation of intellectual production must consider the different activities of the teaching workload to avoid suffering and contribute to increasing quality to the scientific knowledge production.

In this paper we propose to present the results and a discussion related to actions developed within the judiciary system in Brazil. Based on the approach of work psychodynamics and activity-centered ergonomics, a discussion is proposed relating the impacts of the neoliberal managerial system on the subjectivity and the health of magistrates. In addition a debate on the risks for democracy both at the level of collective work within the judiciary and at the level of the society and on the rule of citizenship is proposed.For the Psychodynamics of Work, work is always a challenge for oneself; any kind of work also involves the interpretation of conflicting rules in face of singular situations where the reality always transcends what had already been planned. It also requires committing, assuming the strategic and ethical risks involved. In this sense, the work of magistrates is an exemplary case; even in a type of work with a stable relationship, good salaries and an important social role, the degradation of professional ethos, cooperation and deontic activity.

The magnitude of the current health and economic crisis has highlighted the criticality of the food sector for life and social stability. Production and consumption represent critical environmental impacts on soil degradation, water pollution, and biodiversity reduction. The generation of waste is also significant. In addition to these territorial impacts, food can create several fundamental functionalities such as work, health, services and social relationships. This article presents an analysis, based on the Functional and Cooperative Economy (FCE) approach, of two initiatives that cooperate for food well-being in Rio de Janeiro, the first related to food production and distribution, and the second to collection and treatment of organic waste. The objective is to characterize the challenges and limits of these initiatives’ current economic model and build guidelines for transforming their economic models. Through collective dynamics and interactions with company managers, the importance of a higher articulation of these initiatives with beneficiaries and territorial actors, capable of increasing the relevance of the solutions offered about their expectations and needs, and an evolution of functionalities and performances of uses. This collective engagement will allow the sharing of material and immaterial resources, in a convergence of interests and actors that act in the service of a territorial project with economic, social, societal and environmental intentions.

An ergonomics/human factors (EHF) audit is a methodology for regular review of the fit between people and their working systems. Its objective is to provide proactive guidance on problems or good practices, so that actions can be taken to improve the EHF of a work system, often with an emphasis on safety. An EHF audit can be an appropriate measure of the performance of the EHF function. The objective of this paper is to review the current state of EHF audits from a variety of EHF perspectives and domains, so as to address their value and shortfalls. Audits in the literature and in EHF practice were reviewed (Drury and Dempsey 2020) by considering the audit’s objective structure and typical questions, as well as noting the balance between breadth, depth and application time. While much of that review concentrated on the data collection instrument, often a checklist or questionnaire, details of how the audit was to be used were noted. This included the sampling scheme and how results of the audit data collection were to be analyzed and presented to management and workforce. The current paper extends the review to lead to lessons learned that can be applied to future audit systems.

A recurrent in Ergonomics/Human Factors (EHF) studies of the performance of quality inspection systems is: How to obtain valid measures of system performance. Such measures are needed to determine whether the whole system meets the enterprise’s needs, and also as a baseline for measuring the effectiveness of interventions, e.g., human/automation integration. The methodology used in the paper was to select, review and analyze the findings of over 50 years of inspection studies (e.g., Drury 2019) in a variety of domains starting in manufacturing (e.g., See 2012), but continuing into maintenance, security screening, and medical imaging. In all of these domains a similar need emerges to accurately measure inspection system performance This paper provides an analysis of the issues involved, alternatives for measurement and recommendations for a comprehensive approach. The major issues in performance measurement are presented. For most applications we recommend one type of study for human, automated and hybrid systems: the Test Sample method.

There is growing interest in the use of systems-based risk assessment (RA) methods in human factors and ergonomics (HFE). Despite this, there has been a lack of formal reliability and validity testing undertaken to determine whether systems-based RA methods have the capacity to reliably and accurately identify potential risks within complex systems. The purpose of this study was to test the intra-rater reliability (within subject stability) and criterion-related validity (‘gold standard’ performance) of the Networked Hazard Analysis and Risk Management System (Net-HARMS). Net-HARMS is a new and innovative systems-based RA method that supports analysts with the identification of emergent risks. Emergent risks represent new risks that are created when risks from across a complex system interact with one another. Reliability and validity measures for Net-HARMS were obtained using the Signal Detection Theory (SDT) paradigm. Matthews Correlation Coefficient (MCC) was used to analyze the complete SDT data to measure the strength of the correlation between risks. Findings indicate a weak to moderate level of reliability and validity for Net-HARMS based on the MCC score. The results suggest that there is merit to the continued use of Net-HARMS following a series of methodological recommendations that aim to enhance the reliability and validity of future applications.

To measure the complexity of the technical product interface literature provides no methodology. This contribution starts with an overview of the state of the art and a categorized summary of the most relevant literature regarding product-related complexity. A methodical approach is presented for measuring human-machine-interface (short: HMI) - complexity including the product complexity and the degree of automation. For both HMI complexity and product complexity, a parameterization is used to obtain a measurable value. With the help of this parameterization a relationship between these three variables could be established. The degree of automation as a variable is used in the form of a balancing buffer to compensate border crossings depending the HMI complexity as well as the product complexity. These borders are individually marked of the respective product in combination with the user group. A brief evaluation of the methodology on the basis of different example products is carried out.

The analysis of near miss incidents is recognized as an important component of safety management. The aim of this study is to present a systems analysis of near miss incidents in the Australian Led Outdoor Activity (LOA) sector. This study utilized the LOA specific incident reporting and learning system, Understanding and Preventing Led Outdoor Activity Data System (UPLOADS), to analyze near miss incidents in LOAs in Australia. UPLOADS is based on Rasmussen’s risk management framework and uses a modified AcciMap framework. Data for the current analysis was provided by 18 LOA providers across a 12-month period between September 2018 to September 2019. The LOA providers represented all Australian states and territories. The results demonstrate that a network of factors from across the system contribute to near miss incidents. These include, local government, parents, schools, LOA organizations, supervisors, participants, and the environment. The current findings will help LOA providers better understand near miss incidents and improve their safety efforts.

The increasing complexity of interconnected systems, organizations and environmental instability open on one hand new functional features and unexpected levels of systemic efficiency, but on the other hand leads to great challenges to maintain a good level of usability. We assume that the complex systems should be adapted to human capacities and goals through a structural integration of such complexity by the interactive systems. These systems should be both: structurally complex from technological and organizational standpoint; and conceptually simple from operator’s standpoint, in other words it should be simplex. In order to design an efficient balance between complexity and simplexity a new kind of user centered methods are necessary. But, current available methods in ergonomics to assess Human-Simplex System Interactions (HSSI) are limited in the field of Human Oriented Approach of Complexity, also called Human System Integration (HSI). In this paper, we present an experimental assessment of an evaluation method based on a set of Ergonomic Criteria able to support human factors specialists during an inspection task of complex systems. This experimental study aimed to assess if these Ergonomic Criteria are useful and efficient. Thirty-one HSI Designers performed an ergonomic inspection of two Simplex Systems in order to capture a maximum of usability/assistance flaws. The results show that the criteria are reliable and valid. The use of these Criteria allowed to identify more flaws and also more flaws shared between assessors. Nevertheless, the satisfaction results revealed the need to improve the level of maturity of these criteria.

In the occurrence of natural calamities and accidents, emergency safety symbol is an implicit comparison to proper usage of equipment and appropriate action to follow. The study aims to investigate the relationships and significant differences among demographic factors, comprehension scores, type of identification responses, and cognitive design features that are all associated to emergency symbols. A total of 236 participants accomplished the entire questionnaire. Comprehensibility design of 15 emergency symbols were investigated through demographic factors (age, gender, and educational attainment), type of identification responses (correct, partially correct, incorrect, and opposite meaning), and cognitive design features (familiarity, simplicity, spatial recognition, and semantic closeness). The study incorporated descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis, ANOVA, and Tukey Post-Hoc test. Symbols 3, 13, and 15 passed ≥ 85% comprehensibility requirement of American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Symbols 2, 3, and 5–11 were classified as critically confusing with greater than 5% “opposite meaning” value. Symbol 3 (93.73%) was the most familiar signage while symbol 5 (62.71%) was the least familiar signage. The simplest sign was symbol 3 (95.51%) and symbol 9 (73.9%) was the most complex. Symbol 3 (93.22%) had the highest value of spatial recognition while symbol 9 (74.15%) had the lowest percentage. Highest semantic closeness was acquired by symbol 15 (92.46%) and the least percentage was obtained by symbol 14 (72.63%). Comprehension scores were significant and positively correlated to familiarity (0.62), semantic closeness (0.61), spatial recognition (0.60), and simplicity (0.52). Gender and educational attainment were significant to comprehension scores. Statistical analysis utilized in the study provided interrelationship between the identified factors relative to comprehensibility of emergency safety symbols.

Automated shuttles are currently being trialed as a new transport solution however to date there has been a lack of studies investigating how other road users interact with these new types of vehicles. The aim of this study was to understand the situation awareness (SA) of road users (driver, cyclist, motorcyclist, pedestrian) interacting with an automated shuttle on a public road. Naturalistic data were collected, and the Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork was used to develop task, social and information networks for a scenario when all four road user types interacted with the automated shuttle at a T-intersection. The findings provide early insights into SA of different road users when interacting with automated shuttles at unsignalized intersections. Such insights could be used to improve the design of shuttles and road environments to support the SA and decision making of human road users.

People experience the world around them in vastly different ways through a diverse range of sensory inputs and outputs. The purpose of this research was to explore a sociotechnical systems approach to support sensory urban design and establish an archetype model for public space design and evaluation. The research involved the construction of a Work Domain Analysis, the first phase of the systems analysis approach, Cognitive Work Analysis. The resultant model incorporates key sensory design principles to build an in-depth and integrated understanding of accessible, engaging and inclusive public space. The model was then applied to two existing public spaces to assess the impact of a holistic sensory design approach. Key findings illustrate the importance of integrating sensory design elements into public spaces to achieve increased levels of sensory affordance for all users, regardless of ability.

The objective of this brief review is to demonstrate how analytical (“mathematical”) probabilistic predictive modeling (PPM) can be effectively employed to predict the outcome of a Human-System-Integration (HSI) mission or an extraordinary situation, when the reliability of an instrumentation (both its hard- and software) and human-in-the-loop (HITL) performance contribute jointly to the outcome of the mission or the situation. The general concepts are illustrated by numerical examples. It is concluded that analytical modeling should always be considered, in addition to computer simulations, in any HSI undertaking of importance: these two modeling techniques are based, as a rule, on different assumptions and employ different calculation procedures, and if the calculated data obtained using these two approaches are in agreement, then there is a good reason to believe that the obtained results are accurate and trustworthy.

The text analyses steering groups (SGs) in ergonomic actions. The SGs are considered as training and strategy tools by ergonomists. They are also seen in their function of co-training and co-analysis of work and of construction of a common language in interventions, which are part of the training paradigm of actors in and for the analysis of work, for and by action. Its background is the complexity of Ergonomics and Training interventions, the sustainability of the ergonomic action and the reciprocal learning. This is the register of the experience of an ergonomic action accomplished in a coal mining cooperative to discuss its wrongs and rights. The focus is on the relevance of the discussion, as there is little dissemination of structured methodology on SG organization. The main issue is on how to structure SGs in ergonomic work analyses (EWAs) that conciliate transformation of labor situations and training of workers. An ergonomic action with work analysis, SG structuring and Meetings on the Work (MWs) was carried out. The results point out indications to what one has to consider when structuring technical, political and operational steering groups.

One of the most critical differentiator of skills in chest x-rays diagnosis is an effective information acquisition strategy coupled with thorough medical knowledge. However, well-experienced doctors frequently find it difficult to explicitly explain their skills because such skills are implicit and automated. To uncover characteristics of skills in chest x-rays diagnosis, we monitored eye movements as well as their debriefing utilizing the eye movement data, seventeen medical doctors including experts, intermediates, and residents during diagnosing twenty chest x-rays. Based on debriefing and eye movement data, we discuss possible application of eye movement data for effective education system.

Lecturers are bearers of knowledge and are expected to dispense them. However, professional exposures influence the degree of Knowledge Awareness and Practice (KAP) of a given phenomenon like ergonomics that is multidisciplinary. The level of the KAP of Ergonomics among lecturers appears unknown. This study assessed and compared the level of KAP of Ergonomics between Lecturers in Engineering Faculty and College of Medicine, University of Nigeria.This cross-sectional survey sampled the KAP of lecturers in the College of Medicine (CoML) and the Faculty of Engineering (FEngL). Their sociodemographics and KAP of Ergonomics were assessed using a self structured questionnaire. Data obtained were analyzed using frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and independent t-test. The level of significance was set at 0.05.A total of 75 lecturers (33 CoML and 42 FEngL), majority of whom were males (65.3%) and at the level of the rank of Lecturer II or I (48.0%). More FEngL (73.8%) than CoML (69.7%) wrongly reported that ergonomics fits workers to their work, while more CoML (78.8%) than FEngL (71.4%) wrongly reported that document in a computer workstation should be placed flat on the table. Overall, there was no significant difference (p > 0.05) in the mean ergonomics knowledge (58.01 ± 27.65% vs 61.22 ± 28.80), awareness (68.18 ± 30.79% vs 64.88 ± 29.89%) and practice (46.21 ± 30.79% vs 45.53 ± 22.23%) of the participants (CoML vs FEngL respectively).COML and FEngL have a fair knowledge/Awareness of Ergonomics but their practical application is poor. There is need for lecturers to advance their knowledge, awareness and practice of Ergonomics through training and retraining.

This article aims at explaining the setting up and the progress of the Junior Practice in Reflection Committee of the SELF’s “day of exchange on practices”. Here we describe how the day took place in February 2020 in Paris. We are going to explain how the engineering of the discussion is organized and what effects are expected when we are talking about the practice of ergonomics. Beyond this description, our approach is to document about the engineering discussion around the implementation of a reflexivity on the practice among novice ergonomists.

The notion of scenario runs through many more or less formalised currents in the domain of vocational training design. However, the notion of scenario and scriptwriting (i.e., scenario design) does not seem to have stabilised well in ergonomics and in the field of vocational training. With this in mind, we conducted a systematic review of the scientific literature in the field of vocational training in order to better understand how authors define these notions of scenario and scriptwriting and how they report on them in their publications. Using the systematic literature review methodology PRISMA, we identified a corpus of 91 scientific articles over the period 2000–2019 from an initial corpus of 1051 articles. We present here the first results of this work by highlighting the main aspects of the definitions attributed to the concept of scenario. We then focus on 17 characteristics which govern what the authors consider to be a “good scenario”. Finally, we focus on the most quoted characteristics of a good scenario: realism.

This article is part of a wider symposium which aims to present what has been developed by the Junior Practices in Reflection Committee of the French Speaking Ergonomics Society (SELF) in terms of exchange on practice. It is the first communication of a symposium and focuses more specifically on the genesis of the Committee. We will first develop the needs that led to its emergence, then the conceptual anchoring, particularly the use of the storytelling that is mobilised. Finally, the various actions that have been implemented since its creation will be developed.

This paper presents a research process aiming at studying the activity of drivers in automated vehicles (AV). To do this, we carried out in situ observations and conducted interviews with two different populations: professional and novice drivers in automated driving (AD). The results obtained by triangulation highlight a series of “sensitive” situations specific to automated driving. The clinical analysis of these situations shows changes in the relations and mediations involved. Some of them have common characteristics, making it possible to classify the sensitive situations identified. These changes require a potential adaptation of “traditional” driving schemes, necessary for the appropriation of the AV by the drivers. These results allow us to provide recommendations for improving AV prototypes, and to consider the design of a learning tool to support the appropriation of these systems. This device should, at a minimum, make it possible to familiarize vehicle drivers with sensitive driving situations, in order to initiate the transformation of their schemes upstream, and to cognitively relieve them in real driving situations.

This article is the second of a four-step symposium presenting the activity of the Junior Practices in Reflection Committee (JPR). It presents a bibliographical review and an example of a storytelling by a young practitioner that take place within the framework of the JPRs. A design project is presented for a school registration reception in a municipality. It will present the methodology implemented with the project’s actors, the tools used and its role in the project. All to consider the constraints of the agents and the public received and to ensure a quality of service. A professional storytelling, like the one presented, is used as a fulcrum for the discussion between junior practitioners.

Risk management is an ongoing process that involves the planning of an organization’s resources, whether human or material, aiming to reduce and/or eliminate the occurrence of certain risks, in addition to mitigating the effects of those that may happen. The objective of this work was to propose the use of the Delphi method and the Bayesian Networks in the evaluation of the influence of fatigue on occurrences of air traffic involving the process of practical instruction. To achieve this objective, a preliminary report corresponding to the exercise from February 2019 to February 2020 was considered. The report pointed out that of the 15 existing sectors that cover the airspace region within the scope of the São Paulo Operations Center/In Brazil, sectors T7, T8, and T5 (grouped with T3 and/or T4) had more occurrences. Three (03) controllers who act as instructors, assigned probability values considering (a) the influence of fatigue during practical instruction (b) the sectors involved, (c) the complexity of the tasks to be performed, and (d) the existence or not of adverse weather conditions. The results points out that the complexity of the task is the most prominent factor for fatigue and the consequent occurrence of incidents, followed by the existence of meteorological conditions and the operation in sector T5 (grouped to T3 and/or T4). The developed research reached, in general, its objectives, being able to contribute as a tool for risk management and decision making during the practical instruction process.

The Center for Material and Sterilization of the Surgical Center of the Sírio Libanês Hospital, the focus of this study, presents data showing a high incidence of absenteeism related to musculoskeletal illness. The present work is a primary study with a qualitative research-action design, with a methodological approach in Ergonomic Workplace Analysis (EWA), aiming to raise an overview of the working conditions that supports improvements for the sector. Of the 44 workers participants 61.36% consider the conditions of comfort of the environment and workstations in the sector to be good or excellent. In the focal groups throughout the workers there was an unanimity regarding their professional fulfillment in the MSC, they referred that they would not trade their jobs for any other. However, ten physical and organizational aspects were identified by workers as workstations with ergonomic problems that need to be improved in order to be more suitable and comfortable, with their respective recommendations. As well, it is relevant too for workers to approach the psychosocial aspects of their labor: highlighting their professional identity and recognition within the Material and Sterilization Center, the Hospital and Nursing.

Ergonomics in Peru is influenced by a very heterogeneous practice: the ergonomics of activity and human factors . In this context, the JPR days in Peru allow novice practitioners to share their practices and make them evolve.

Our approach focuses on the analysis of the activity of care assistants (CAs) working in residential care facilities for elderly dependents (EHPAD in France). We wonder about the link between activity analysis and training: how could this analysis question training?

We describe the analysis of the work-health relationship in coping with the Covid-19 pandemic in a public hospital from data derived from a questionnaire and the accomplishment of Groups of Meetings on Work based on the three-pole dynamic device. Health workers have faced exhausting routines, making complex use of themselves to care for patients. They experienced overload and exhaustion, besides feeling of powerlessness in the face of the number of deaths and uncertainties. The constant changes in the protocols generate insecurity in the action. The importance of the meetings is evident in order to strengthen the teams’ trust and cooperation in facing the work’s variability.

Production demands are one of the constraints that challenges work activity, knowledge transmission and learning in workplace.In order to understand, through the analysis of real work activity, how working conditions within a context based on a pull flow model interferes with knowledge transmission and learning, a case study was conducted within a specific and crucial function in a Lithograph production line in a Portuguese metalomechanic company. Data was collected through the analysis of the real work activity of Printing Lithographers (PL) and Auxiliary Printing Lithographers (APL).Data show that PL is a function with high variability and fluctuating demands, in a pull flow logic, that affects knowledge transmission and learning opportunities: these occurs through brief/momentary explanations and demonstrations during production, depending on current problems and on PL’ availability.The results underpin the pertinence and originality of the study in terms of understanding the impact that certain working conditions have on knowledge transmission and learning in pull flow organizations, particularly in the Portuguese context, and contributes also to scientific enrichment about the importance of using work analysis in real work contexts.

We present here the first part of an ongoing study conducted at a French high school, about the co-design of tools exploiting Learning Analytics by teachers and Computer Sciences researchers. The device implemented by the IT specialists hardly meets the conditions that would allow for an effective participation of stakeholders in the design process. The object planned to be designed turns out to be disconnected from the real activity of teachers.

This paper presents a comparative study of training of non-technical skills in the maritime and lignite power domains. Non-technical skills (NTS) are the cognitive, social and personal resource skills that complement technical skills in operations within high-risk domains. Training NTS is essential to maintain safety in operational contexts, such as onboard a merchant vessel or in the operation of a lignite power plant. Contextual interviews and observations have been conducted across 8 operator training courses, three maritime and five lignite power. The results indicate that the training approaches and their execution differs greatly despite having a common theoretical basis. While training in the observed maritime courses often combined longer theoretical lectures with group exercises and high-fidelity simulations, the focus of the training remained on the use of specific NTS techniques or tools to prevent accidents and incidents. In contrast to this approach, the training in the lignite power domain primarily focused on how to integrate selected NTS into daily operations. While the lignite training also utilized incident examples and shorter lectures, the focus remained on simulating everyday work tasks and to apply newly learned practices as part of routine operations and standard operational procedures. Further, trainees in the lignite training courses were empowered to take charge of their learning processes, as parts of the training let them recreate situations from their work within the simulator. This article highlights lessons learned from each domain with the goal of improving training practices for NTS in high-risk operations.

Resilience is an important characteristic of a hydroelectric power plant operation. Training in resilience skills (RS) can improve the resilience of systems. The aim of this study is to develop a computational platform to train hydroelectric power plants operators, using the Resilience Engineering perspective. A plant was recreated in a virtual environment, in which the trainees and the instructors see real images of the installations and equipment, moving inside the plant, based on the simulation of four basic scenarios that contemplate the exercise of eleven RS categories. A module for assessing trainee performance is the basis for a debriefing session with instructors at the end of the simulation. Tests of the platform were carried out with plant operators and adjustments were made aiming at the use of it in the formal training program of the company involved.

Are you tired of listening to presentations that go on and on that put you to sleep? Do you think you can do better? As part of the Student/ECR committee, the IEA2021 is hosting a ‘Pecha Kucha’ (PK) competition for students. This will give students a chance to showcase their overall thesis topics. PK is derived from a Japanese word for ‘chit-chat’ and signifying a concise, fast-paced method of delivering a presentation. PK is a creative and imaginative way to explain complex research, within a short time period. The competition will be following the traditional Pecha Kucha format, where participants will be restricted to showing 20 slides, for 20 s each, with a total of six minutes and 40 s to speak on their thesis topic, in the realm of Ergonomics.

While interest in online and blended learning has surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, distance learning courses have been available for several decades. This paper provides a reflective review of the Ergonomics and Human Factors distance learning courses offered by the University of Nottingham. Some of the successes of these courses include the adoption of new collaboration technologies and the high quality practical work conducted in the students’ own workplaces. Challenges remain around maintaining student engagement, managing the impact of students’ other responsibilities on their learning, and parity of the student experience. Opportunities exist for blended learning and adopting additional technologies such as immersive virtual learning environments.

Courses on ergonomics, occupational health, safety, and work design are usually present in engineering programs, providing an opportunity for raising students’ awareness of the importance of work sciences. However, the distribution of these courses across different engineering specializations is unclear. This paper analyses 71 engineering programs from five specializations (chemical, civil, electrical, industrial, mechanical), from 10 Brazilian universities to identify courses related to the Work Engineering (WE) field, which articulates ergonomics, work design, and occupational health topics. In total, 89 unique courses were found, occurring 113 times across the programs analyzed. The Industrial Engineering programs were the ones with the most relevant courses (62,5% of the programs had 3 or more WE-related courses). The analysis of the titles of the courses highlighted that “work”, “safety” and “ergonomics” were the most recurrent themes addressed in the courses. On the other hand, the topic “health” is practically ignored in Brazilian engineers’ training. In general, the results emphasize the relatively small number and uneven distribution of WE courses in engineering programs, further supporting the need to build an interdisciplinary field of knowledge applied to engineering and in close collaboration with Ergonomics.

This work presents elements for an epistemological approach to the research lines of the proposed Doctorate in Ergonomics in Colombia and how they aim to respond to the context and needs of the region. Considering the characteristics of the context, the development of ergonomics in the region and the history and strengths of the research groups involved, three research lines are proposed: Ergonomics, work and health; Ergonomics, innovation, design and organizations and Ergonomics, social impact and sustainability.

This study aimed to place the students in an operational situation as Human Factor and Ergonomics (HFE) engineers within a vehicle architecture project and propose them as learning objectives using the different ergonomics tools to evaluate the occupant packaging of a vehicle. A Computer-Aided Design (CAD) application has been proposed, enabling the users to generate a 3D digital model, called digital mockup, of a car without in-depth knowledge in the use of CAD software. The students’ groups used the CAD application and reproduced a digital mockup after measuring the different dimensions in a real car. This quickly generated car model allows them to evaluate occupant packaging elements, such as posture, reach-capability, and visibility by ergonomics tools. Most users of the CAD application were satisfied and believed that it saved their time significantly. However, the CAD application needs to improve in several aspects to better responds to the vehicle interior design needs.

Traditional Human Factors Engineering (HFE) education focuses on bridging the gap between human and system design. Given the rapid, and accelerating technological advancement, particularly in areas such as machine learning and data science, how should HFE education adapt to better equip students for working in industry? This project sought to identify and understand the gap between HFE education and industry needs by surveying human factors engineering students and practitioners concerning their impressions of the gap and how it can be addressed.

The Road Freight Transport (RFT) sector is continuously evolving, being confronted with intense competition and growing pressure from customers and suppliers, tight delivery times, and many regulations. All these factors lead the RFT sector to face multiple economic, environmental, and safety challenges. In these companies, the planner has a central position. The tasks of planner include supervising the transport round, keeping contact with the drivers during delivery, providing new instructions when needed, ensuring order follow-up with customers, etc. Such tasks require a high cognitive load which implies difficulties for planners in assessing the consequences of their decisions in terms of economic, environmental, and safety dimensions. In this study, principles of prospective ergonomics have been tested to support the transition from a human-based decision making to a computer-supported decision-making to anticipate the future computer-supported decision-making. We focused on the effect of system transparency and reliability. We confronted six planners with planning problems. We modified information available on planning to provide high and low levels of transparency. Starting from real issues, we also generated reliable and unreliable solutions (for these latter by adding invalid data). For each problem, planners were asked to assess the quality of the proposed solutions and indicators. The results showed than planners give a higher score to reliable scenarios displaying reliable information than to a less reliable scenario in which information is modified. This assessment of scenario is more adequate and easier with high transparency than with low transparency of information.

Using an integrated, collaborative and holistic approach in the understanding and solution implementation to Human Factors and Ergonomics is essential as employees face increasing demands, experience complex conditions and are required to perform at higher levels of function. This paper highlights the positive impacts of instilling a model of practice that promotes successful collaboration between employees, employers and Subject Matter Experts (SME) with the aim of improving employees and industry’s health while contributing to the enhancement of the science of Human Factors Ergonomics, Occupational Therapy, Traditional and Alternative Medicines. Inspired by the Industrial Athlete model first introduced at the Boeing company in 2005 to support their factory workers, the authors have developed a more comprehensive and holistic model based on lessons learned where SMEs and experts from various disciplines collaborate from the onset by using their unique professional lens to address workers and workplace related injuries and solve Human Factors and Ergonomics issues to ensure optimal and sustainable results [1, 2]. Utilizing an interdisciplinary model of practice promotes the offering of services that are built on trust, knowledge transfer and expertise which benefit the employees’ health and well-being and allows for successful implementation of strategies, directives and changes, while ensuring that both employees and employers access professional support from industry experts and assuring that their respective needs are identified at program inception. This collaborative approach allows for a seamless integration of disciplines that aim to benefit workers in their ability to excel in their role while receiving the care they need efficiently.

This communication aimed to present a reflexive method to evaluate how a new safety management program is being implemented in the daily practices of managers. This method was built during an experimentation in a partnership research (E-safety project), in order to be then deployed by the managers and safety actors of the railways company. We conducted a study according to five steps: 1) preparation phase with the sponsor of the evaluation, 2) kick-off meeting with the director of one of the company's infrastructure maintenance facilities, 3) data collection by semi-structured interviews, 4) analysis of the data collected and 5) co-construction of a diagnosis on the implementation of the safety program in the daily practices. Here, we focus on the step three. Participants were twelve managers representing the four levels of the management line of this site and two support services. More the results concerning the assessment of the safety program, we aimed to present the method, its principles, the type of quantitative and qualitative analysis conducted and figures. These results then lead to discuss the interest of moving towards a constructive approach of safety.

Within realistic time constraints we successfully trained six occupational health and safety professionals in applying a Design Thinking (DT) approach to solve complex musculoskeletal and psychosocial problems at work. DT may be defined by the double diamond model pointing to a non-linear and user-centred problem-solving process iterating through divergent and convergent phases A key characteristic of DT is the ability to frame a problematic situation in new and interesting ways. The training was done in a full-day workshop followed by a learning-by-doing phase in which they planned and completed design sprint workshops in companies. The professionals went from novices into advanced beginners according to the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition. In the overall question of the usefulness of DT in OHS management, the average rating went from 6 before the training course to 9.5 after. In an evaluation of the DT approach on a 1–5 scale they rated design sprints at 3.8 to be more appropriate to manage complex problems than the methods they normally used. However, more experience seems necessary to adopt the DT mind set of an iterative process, in which they need to decide which tools to use in an emergent, nonlinear and iterative fashion.

Need-seeker approach, which orients new product development towards the satisfaction of future needs, has been recognized as one of the most efficient innovation strategies to date. But finding future needs to address remains a challenge for companies, entrepreneurs and practitioners, as they lack a methodological framework to structure their approach. In this chapter, we first elaborate on three paradigms for need-seeking: discovery of future needs, creation of new needs, and recovery of fundamental needs. We then provide examples of methods supporting each paradigm, and tentatively position them in terms of reliability and affordability, so that innovation teams can make informed choices in their application. Thereby, we expect to contribute to the field of prospective ergonomics and its concrete implementation, as well as to the promotion of radical innovation based on needs and uses rather than based solely on technology.

Future shared robot taxis should reduce traffic congestion in cities, and in order to design services adapted to the needs of users, the sources of comfort and discomfort must be specified. In order to project people into the use of this future mobility, the technique of Guided Imaginary Projection was used with 40 men and women between 22 and 66 years of age. It made it possible to specify the effect produced by the absence of a driver, a driver who usually takes on the role of mediator who reassures, organizes and manages the unexpected events. Recommendations for the design of such services were drafted.

This paper focuses on project management activities in the field of maintenance of high-risk industries. It studies the resources and constraints of project managers, at individual and collective levels, to anticipate and manage the multiple coordination and interdependencies in the projects and to do the « articulation work».

This paper presents a thesis in progress. This research work focuses on the frameworks of thought and action that structure prevention in France, described as the health and safety doctrine, and their relationship with service activities. It involves both a work of conceptualization of this doctrine, operated from the notion of social apparatus in Foucault's philosophy, and the construction of an original methodology to question it from the work activity. This text also develops some preliminary results to illustrate the contribution of the methodological choices made.

In safety-critical systems, such as aviation systems, nuclear power plants and hospitals, system failures can cause loss of life, environmental and property damage. Safety-critical systems consists of loose or tight interactions, they are more or less complex, and these characteristics affect the system’s ability to prevent and overcome emerging system failures. The demand for good safety cultures, and safe and efficient work within these types of systems highlight the crucial role of safety leadership. This paper reports on findings from a small pilot study with the aim of exploring whether safety leadership in practice differs according to the built in properties of complexity and coupling in safety-critical organizations. Based on a literature review on safety leadership, interviews were conducted with one leader at a nuclear power plant, and one at a university hospital. The two systems can be viewed to have separate characters and differences in the way work is performed. Contrasts existed between safety leadership within the nuclear power plant and the hospital setting concerning flexibility in the organizations. The hospital setting were more suitable for adaptability and flexibility in relation to dynamical decision hierarchies. The nuclear power plant setting was viewed as more rigid with tightly coupled interactions, and the leadership and safety culture might be extra crucial within this system. Nevertheless, both interviewees promoted a transformational and inspirational leadership style. However, transactional leadership was preferable in critical situations.

Safety development is of high stakes in work environment, as recent accidents remind us. Despite several paradigms have proposed approaches to characterize and develop safety practices, it appears that more complementarity is still possible based on the consideration of real work. From a case study in the aeronautics industry (metal additive manufacturing), the objective of this article is to present an operationalization of the concept of constructed safety practices.First, an analysis of regulated safety has been done from the actual safety practices prescribed (risk assessment, protection equipment, etc.). Then, a characterization of managed safety practices has been achieved regarding the current work activities and exposure situations to micro and nanoparticles. Finally, one confrontation interview with a worker was a mean to identify constructed safety practices development.Constructive safety appears both in the individual or collective strategy built by the worker, and by the development of safety prescriptions based on a knowledge of managed safety practices. This exploratory work gives prospects to build another theoretical and practical prospect to act on the safety development.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work has been adopted by many organizations as a way to reduce the risk of contagion and preserve jobs and companies. This emergency situation led to a sudden and compulsory shift from the office to home, forcing the adoption of teleworking from home by people and organizations who had little or no experience with this type of workstyle modality. Also, important phases such as planning and resourcing workers and managers may have been passed over with minimal or no attention. This paper aims to raise and discuss experiences on the adoption of remote work during COVID-19 and issues that should be addressed to avoid possible negative outcomes. Experiences in the adoption of telework during the pandemic show consequences already discussed by the literature, like work-family conflict, but under specific circumstances, such as the closure of schools and daycare centers. Excess workload and technology invasion are also reported as difficulties of remote work in this scenario. Using a macroergonomic model, we address issues that should be verified to overcome these challenges, at different levels, considering factors related to the organizational, personnel, and technological subsystems, and the external environment. The use of a macroergonomic model intends to consider aspects from diverse areas that could influence individual, group, or organizational desired outcomes. The consequences of sudden and enforced remote work during COVID-19 reinforce the importance of planning and accompanying telework comprehensively.

This chapter summarizes the objectives, the approach undertaken, and the results related to action research carried out in correctional institutions in a Swiss canton. The aim was to identify organizational, managerial, and individual measures to feminize the profession of prison officer. After conducting about 50 semi-directed interviews with senior and middle management, as well as with male and female prison officers, several obstacles to this feminization were identified. Subsequently, a questionnaire was sent to all employees of these institutions to better identify the obstacles and the levers to the feminization of this profession. Recommendations were then proposed at the structural, organizational, and individual levels. This study emphasizes the importance of structural measures, such as changes in working hours or childcare support, as well as cultural measures, such as a change in the role of the profession and a change in mentality.

Based on the lessons learned from the Great East Japan Earthquake related to nuclear power plant operation, a training curriculum (with the English name ECO-TEC training) was developed for improving the non-technical skills (NTSs) of emergency response teams at these plants. In this training, plant managers conducted an exercise involving initial response to a severe accident, followed by a debriefing session held to discuss good practices observed in the exercise and points requiring improvement. The debriefing session was set longer than the exercise and was considered to be as important as the exercise itself, that allows participants to recognize their own good practices and those of other members. In previously training situations, participants confirmed the lessons they learned at the post-exercise debriefing session, but whether that changed their performance was not confirmed. In this study, participants who underwent the training multiple times were used as subjects and the results of their post-exercise self-evaluation of NTSs, along with the results of third-party observations, were compared between the first and the second time they took the training. There were 20 multiple-time training participants. They were asked to evaluate their performance against certain targets, and four researchers watched videos of the exercise and evaluated the improvements in the participants’ NTSs.The self-evaluation results for NTSs showed that participants gave higher marks to their behavior for “reciting,” “setting priorities,” “concise reporting,” and “having alternatives” after the second time. Improvement in NTSs was seen in various scenes through behavior observations. This indicated that the subjects drew on the lessons learned from the first time to attain higher NTSs the second time while making the NTSs their own. However, a direct causal relationship between the debriefing session and improvement in skill levels was not established, and therefore it is necessary to continue to collect data.

The third version of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ-III) was developed in response to new trends: professional life, theoretical concepts and international experiences. The use of validated questionnaires in the assessment of psychosocial risk factors at work is of great relevance because it contributes to international comparability of data, and consistently and robustly data collection. The present study aims to review the literature about the evolution of validation studies of COPSOQ towards the 3rd version. The literature review was based on scientific articles about the validation of COPSOQ-III. The COPSOQ-III has already been validated in several countries (Germany, Canada, Spain, France, Sweden and Turkey). The psychometric properties assessed more frequently are reliability, ceiling and floor effects, and distinctiveness. In general, the middle version of COPSOQ III showed adequate internal consistency. Regarding construct validity, it is worth to say that COPSOQ does not have a global score based on the item responses to represent a latent construct.

Human work activities are at the core of value adding processes creating system performance. The concept of human, technology and organization (HTO) is used in different cases as it offers a framework for understanding and developing work. The aim of this paper is to elucidate the character of work activities and their significance in using the HTO concept. The aspects elaborated on are: the relation between the objectives of the organization and the activity, the organizational context of the activity, the variability of the individual and the work process, the influence of history, the relation between the individual and the activity and finally how activity can be studied. Looking at three short examples from different industries, it can be concluded that the HTO concept is beneficial to use in order to better understand the studied activities in the examples. However, there must be clearly identifiable tasks to really benefit from the HTO concept.

Emergency preparedness actions conducted through participatory programs for improving working environment of local government workers in a district of a prefecture were analyzed. Modified versions of the mental health action checklist listing locally feasible types of improvements were used for proposing potential improvements. Common types of achieved improvements and their relation to emergency preparedness were analyzed. The majority of 348 improvements reported in five years from 2014 to 2018 concerned work methods and physical environment factors. Nearly 30% of these improvements addressed communication measures for sharing information or mutually supporting co-workers. Emergency preparedness actions accounted for about 5%. In each year, participating workplaces often implemented two or more improvements, and emergency preparedness actions tended to be taken in combination with improved communication measures. These results confirmed that adequate emergency responses could be facilitated through group discussions utilizing locally adjusted action checklists covering communication-related improvements. It was suggested important for enhancing emergency preparedness to organize dialog-based participatory steps assisted by action checklists indicating locally appropriate responses extending to workplace-level communication measures.

For ergonomics to create real change, it needs to address the immediate technical problem to be solved as well as the human, organizational, and societal context of the change. This contribution presents a qualitative-interpretative analysis that reflects on vignettes from real life experiences. These cases will create sketches that will be familiar to ergonomists and change agents in organizations. Using this storytelling format, we will convert the focus of analysis from traditional change strategies to this broader conceptualization of systems. This will include questions about the journey (history) to the scenario, the actors’ motivations, agendas, agency and the organizational causes. Defining matters of fact (MoF) and matters of concern (MoC) is similar to accident investigation analysis as they define proximal and distal causation to the event. The paper suggests a way to conceptualize these contextual variables into the ergonomics change process.

As ergonomics is confronted with future-oriented design projects, ergonomists must investigate how design could create novel and adapted ideas. In often ill-defined contexts, prospective ergonomics proposes to rely on methods and knowledge related to creativity, to foster the design process. In this paper, we introduce the prospective persona method, which is the implementation of the persona method applied to individuals who experience uses or artefacts that are identified as being precursory. The objective of this persona is to improve constraints management by adding the description of needs little known to designers. The study presented in this paper aims to compare the quality of ideation during a creativity task using ordinary persona, prospective persona or no persona. Our results show an effect of prospective persona on creativity. Prospective persona allows for a higher number of new ideas than ordinary persona and is the source of more feasible ideas the non-use of persona. We therefore recommend the use of prospective persona in future-oriented creativity design phase.

This paper begins by identifying two habits that hinder the ability of human factors to assist organisations in looking beyond their tech-problems, to better understand their socio-technical problems, and develop solutions. First, the tendency toward prima facie acceptance of widely accepted, often vague claims (e.g. that “communication affects productivity”), which can result in the under examination of concepts and the appropriateness of their application to real world contexts. Second, the tendency for experimental psychology to investigate such claims by testing specific constructs using environments and subjects that at best can only simulate, and can never adequately capture, the complex real-world contexts in which they are to be applied. The authors argue that these shortcomings can be addressed through analysis consisting of a mix of technical and organisational issues using both qualitative and quantitative methods. This is then illustrated through a case study of the authors’ recent project on navy vessel maintenance.

The main research goal is the identification of the most important well-being parameters determining worker’s efficiency in the financial sector from 2005 until 2020 in the time of great changes in the socio-economic situation in Slovenia. Data were collected in 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020 - key periods of important milestones in economic growths and declines in Slovenia for 2723 financial workers. All data are analyzed using the ML classification method to identify the most important attributes (well-being parameters) determining worker’s efficiency. To prevent possible overfitting and/or underfitting there is a prescribed adequate tree depth for each decision tree as an additional domain knowledge added to the presented ML solution. We chose a binary decision tree learning, that is simple to understand and interpret with an ability to handle both numerical and categorical data.Decision trees generated with the ML classification show, that workers with low efficiency (estimated as “poor” or “inadequate”) were mostly out of work. In 2005 the most important influential factor was psychological fatigue. From 2010 to 2020, physical fatigue was the most important influential factor.External socio-economic factors determine the level of well-being and efficiency. Adequate level of well-being is the basis of workers’ efficiency and their health. The conclusions are based on the data from 2005 to 2020. Presented approach based on implementation of ML is a tool for identification of gripping points for intervention at work to maintain adequate level of workers well-being in a new working reality.

The esports’ scene is a multibillion-dollar industry with large global audiences. There is an increasing scholarly interest on the esports phenomenon, looking at it from a variety of disciplines. At the center of the esports ecosystem are the athletes who are members of teams that compete in leagues and tournaments, working in a still poorly regulated industry. Not surprisingly, the esports scene is usually characterized by poor working conditions, busy schedules and burnout. As a direct consequence, players’ push for better working conditions is frequent and a possible avenue for pursuing such efforts is the establishing of players’ association. In this context, this exploratory study aims to analyze the activities and initiatives carried out by the Counter Strike Professional Players’ Association, to promote better working conditions for professional esports’ players. The study qualitative analyses documents from the association, coding the initiatives and topics addressed by them. Results indicate that the association tries to address work conditions, regulations, player compensation and health issues by discussing guidelines and minimum standards of work with event organizers and teams organizations. We propose a model to understand the role of players’ associations in dealing with these parties as well as with game developers, and the possible outcomes from these negotiations. The incorporation of Human Factor and Ergonomics specialists to players’ associations can be a way to assist on driving for improvements on the esports scene.

It is unusual to find ergonomic evaluations or interventions approached from a macroergonomic perspective in the Latin American context. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ergonomic maturity level of a Colombian company in the floriculture sector using the Ergonomic Maturity Model (EMM), a macroergonomic tool. The evaluation was conducted in three stages: (1) preparation, (2) evaluation, and (3) improvement plan. An ergonomist conducted this process with the participation of five managers and 61 operational workers of the company. Several EMM tools were used to assist the evaluation process: evaluation matrix, weighting questionnaire, and a detailed questionnaire. As a result, the company was classified at the lowest maturity level (Level 1: Ignorance). Further, the maturity assessment results showed how managers and workers have different opinions and expectations about the development and application of ergonomics. We hope that the organization’s discussions generated during the evaluation process will allow ergonomics to be gradually integrated into its processes.

COVID-19 is taking a significant toll on front-line healthcare professionals - especially nurses who provide care for patients 24/7. Given the trend for higher acuity levels among the COVID-19 patients and increased infection prevention and control (IPAC) precautions, such as donning and doffing personal protective equipment (PPE), the demands on front-line healthcare professionals have changed. To understand the changes, discrete event simulation (DES) was used to quantify the effects of varying COVID-19 policies on nurse workload and quality of care. We are testing a standard nurse-patient ratio of 1:5 where we vary the number of COVID-19 positive patients in that mix from 1 to 5. Preliminary modeling results show as nurses were assigned to more COVID-19 positive patients, the workload of nurses increased, and quality of care deteriorated. In comparison to the baseline (pre-pandemic) case, distance walked by simulant-nurse, mental workload, direct care time, missed care, missed care delivery time and care task waiting time, increased by up to 40%, 279%, −27%, 132%, 311% and 44%, respectively. The developed approach has implications for design of the healthcare system as a whole, including pandemic planning scenarios.

In acting training, psychophysical exercises are used to strengthen the relationship between mind and body, thus fostering a deeper understanding of the character [1]. Intrigued and inspired by the potential value of these techniques in design contexts, we explored their application for interaction designers as research methods in a pedagogical setting. To do so, we first created a single-session workshop that introduced design students to basic actor movement techniques in the winter of 2019. The goal of the workshop was to help students empathize with their users and discover solutions when designing digital products. Later, in the fall of 2020, we used reflections from the first activity to develop two longer workshops; both consisted of three sessions and were carried out consecutively in two different universities. In this article, we present a case study of those three workshops. After discussing considerations for the evolution of the workshops, we describe how each was conducted. Finally, we share our findings and insights that arose throughout the process.

This paper presents the data collection approach that was followed in the initial phase of a Prospective Ergonomics project on the design of future service stations in North America. The data collection involved different stakeholders and consisted of a review of technical documents, field observations, task analyses, and PESTEL analyses. Results show some statistics on the evolution of energy sources for vehicles and on the diversity of services offered at gas stations in Canada. They also highlight some political, social, and technological trends to consider when developing design scenarios for future service stations.

One of the first challenges we face in this article is to define “precarious”. There is a lot of talk about job insecurity, as if it were a recent process, and therefore it is something relatively new in labor relations and production strategies in the capitalist world. We do not agree with this, even if it is not the intention of the authors, to place this process in contemporary times; it is something very old and, perhaps, something that has always existed when people had to work dominated by others. On the other hand, the advent of neoliberalism exacerbated these processes; even more when financial issues more and more govern production systems. So there is a lot to worry about when dealing with the issue of precariousness, since, as they become more accelerated and intense, these processes have an immense repercussion on the health of workers and also on social relations, also constituting a risk greater breakdown among the society.

Complexity theory has been used in ergonomics in response to reductionist views of work and organizations. However, there is still a lot of ambiguity and confusion in the use of concepts and theories of complexity. Defining the type of complexity approach used is essential to advance knowledge, as there are fundamental epistemological, ontological and methodological differences between them that influence the models of the human, of health and of work we produce.

In this paper we propose a conceptual discussion based on a dialogue between ergonomics and psychodynamics of work (PDW) in order to transform working situations to provide meaning for all protagonists; in regard to the concept that work is central to the lives of the subjects, it is an important path to search for self accomplishment and for the development of different professions, organizations and society. It is a complicated, difficult discussion, since many questions arise; questions that are dangerous, destabilizing, above all incomplete; therefore stimulating. It’s also important to discuss about bleak scenarios workers are experiencing at this moment of our history, in many working situations. What is proposed in this paper is related to a specific issue based on questions related to life at work based on concepts of psychodynamics of work (PDW) and findings that come from actions developed in this field.

In this study, we investigated different sources of forward-looking data in the domain of aviation and pilot training that are of interest to human factors researchers and practitioners involved in the creation of future artefacts. We show how trends that are emerging for the future as well as unforeseen short-term events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, impact decisions made on the design of future artefacts in aviation. In this respect, the case of anticipating pilot shortage is examined in relation with the design of a new form of training program: evidence-based training (EBT).

In this paper we aim to present the methodology used in an Ergonomics research work to define the preparation for treatment in external radiotherapy. This research work concerns the analysis of the preparation for treatment in external radiotherapy activity and the difficulties workers are experiencing. Lack of fluidity during this step and between the different actors was noted by the IRSN (Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety) experts and the ASN (Nuclear Safety Authority). IRSN assumes that those lacks of fluidity may have an impact on workers activity and patients’ safety. IRSN formulated a thesis subject on the basis of this hypothesis called “Human activity and transverse performance, the case of preparation for treatment in external radiotherapy”.

Work–life imbalance is a severe problem amongst most secondary school teachers in Hong Kong due to heavy workloads and long working hours. This paper examines the factors affecting the work–life balance of secondary school teachers in Hong Kong. An online questionnaire survey was conducted and 150 valid responses were received. In factor analysis, the correlations between work–life balance and five determinants, namely, time off for personal life, support from supervisor, support from co-workers, workload and work–family conflict, were assessed. High support from co-workers, low workload and low level of work–family conflict were positively correlated with high levels of work–life balance. The findings of this study could serve as a reference for the Education Bureau and principals to formulate policies to help the teachers cope with their workload problems. The implications for practitioners are provided to enhance work–life balance and wellness amongst teachers.