Operations Management: Sustainability and Supply Chain Management, Twelfth Edition

Ergonomics and the Work Environment

With the foundation provided by Frederick W. Taylor, the father of the era of scientific management, we have developed a body of knowledge about people’s capabilities and limitations. This knowledge is necessary because humans are hand/eye animals possessing exceptional capabilities and some limitations. Because managers must design jobs that can be done, we now introduce a few of the issues related to people’s capabilities and limitations.

Ergonomics

The operations manager is interested in building a good interface between humans, the environment, and machines. Studies of this interface are known as ergonomics. Ergonomics means “the study of work.” (Ergon is the Greek word for “work.”) The term human factors ...