Human Factors and Ergonomics Audits

This chapter examines the human-machine tasks of inspecting, checking, and auditing, to provide insights that can guide work design, equipment design, and job aid development. It discusses the knowledge to inspecting, checking, and auditing of human factors/ergonomics aspects of human-machine systems. The chapter provides a detailed review and worked example of human factors/ergonomics audit programs. Ergonomics/human factors, however, are no longer confined to operating in a project mode. Human factors as a discipline cover a wide range of topics from workbench height to function allocation in automated systems. The human factors auditor, having chosen an unbiased sampling scheme and collected data on the correct issues, is perhaps in an excellent position to assist in such management decisions. Inspecting, checking, and auditing are interesting, as they all have human factors design aspects but can all be applied to both the processes being audited and to the auditing process itself.