ERGONOMICS – The Future Is Bigger Than The Past

This presentation will begin a short overview of the past and current states of ergonomics. The past will tell us what works, what is important, what is successful, and what is needed.  The current state will provide insight to our progress, important developments, and on-going and future research. The current state will also allow us to understand new needs that have been overlooked. For example, ergonomics, as we commonly understand it, deals with the upper extremities and back/trunk risk and prevention. We are also working on other body parts such as fingers and hands, lower extremities, neck. More research is being done with the senses, time-to-failure based on force, exposures of time and duration, and postures including the “biomechanical chains” from fingers to trunk. Sensors o posture and acceleration are clearly part of the current state. More complex modeling of humans at work is making great strides. All of this is exciting and positive. However, the future of people at work provides even more challenges and opportunities. The biggest challenge is the definitions of “work”, human performance, cognitive vs. physical work, work versus play, global worker populations and ethnicity, interacting teams of workers, autonomy at work, protective gear in hostile environments, cognitive work tasks, organization of work and workers. The list goes on, and hopefully we can meet these challenges for the good of humankind. Thank you.