Document Type

Conference Presentation

Publication Date

2006

Abstract

A case study in Volvo Powertrain is conducted to examine the distribution of responsibility for human factors in the companies’ engineering design process. Design decisions with human factors impact, and hence system performance implications, are identified in the design of both the product and the production system in a chain of decisions, spread across multiple stakeholder groups. Thus the organisational structure of the engineering design process appears to influence the ability to handle human factors appropriately at each stage of design. Responsibility (although perhaps not accountability) appears to be distributed throughout the engineering design process. Thus human factors aspects require careful coordination throughout engineering design.

Comments

For a more in-depth look on this subject, please see: Neumann, W.P., Ekman, M. and Winkel, J., 2009. Integrating ergonomics into system development - The Volvo Powertrain Case. Applied Ergonomics, 40(3): 527-537. doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2008.09.010 Neumann, W.P. and Winkel, J., 2005. Organisational design and the (dis)integration of human factors in production system development. In: B. Chase (Editor), Human aspects of advanced manufacturing: agility and hybrid automation, San Diego, USA. http://digitalcommons.ryerson.ca/ie/13/ Neumann, W.P., 2004. Production Ergonomics: Identifying and managing risk in the design of high performance work systems, Lund Technical University, Lund, 159 p. ISBN 91-628-6287-1 http://digitalcommons.ryerson.ca/ie/5/ Neumann, W.P., Wells, R.P., Norman, R.W., Jeans, B., Dubblestyne, D., Harvey, H., Peter, O. (1999) Roles and Relationships for Making Ergonomics Change: Results of a 2-Day Focus Session with Industry Personnel. Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Association of Canadian Ergonomists, Hull, Canada http://digitalcommons.ryerson.ca/ie/3/