PhD student

When I left school I started an engineering apprenticeship at a large automotive company. When I joined the company, the production process was going through a huge change, as more processes were becoming automated, and production was being ramped up to handle another model. This meant that the whole factory was going through a major overhaul, with layouts changing to accommodate new machinery and processes. I was heavily involved with redesigning certain work processes and ordering new tools and equipment for an assembly process. This involved extensive product development, task analysis of each process and job design. It seemed obvious to heavily involve the team members in decisions, seeing them as my largest source of information - some team members had worked there for over 30 years - I had been there for two.

It alarmed me that other processes were not being re-designed in this way, and these resulted in an inefficient process that required further tweaking and unhappy work teams. I was also getting frustrated when design engineers would present parts to me that required excessive force, awkward postures or fiddly processes to fit. If the final fitting had been considered early in the design process, many of these issues may have been eliminated. I decided then that I wanted to change this. I wanted to have an impact on how things were designed and how people used them. The main group of people within the company that had an impact on these issues was the manufacturing engineers. I decided I wanted to be one of those.

So I left the company having finished my apprenticeship and went to Loughborough University to start a Manufacturing Engineering Degree. However, having got there, I discovered it was not what I expected at all. I wanted to work at the ‘human end’ of engineering; this course focused more on manufacturing management, with aspects of manufacturing design and engineering product design. So, I quit the course, and had just come to terms with the fact that the university course I had designed in my head didn’t exist, when a chance meeting with an old friend changed my opinion. He had just graduated from Loughborough having obtained a BSc in ergonomics. I didn’t really know what ergonomics was. Like many other people, I had heard the word and knew that things like ergonomic chairs and keyboards existed, but didn’t really appreciate the extensive applications of the subject. As our conversation progressed, and I explained the kind of tasks I saw myself doing in a job, and the things I wanted from a university course, it dawned on both of us that the course I had described was the ergonomics course.

Having just completed the course myself, I can honestly say that it was exactly the course I had in mind when I first set off to study manufacturing engineering. The subject area is so broad and diverse that it kept me interested and I’m keen to learn more. I loved the fact that we would learn about the intricacies of major disasters in the morning, and then in the afternoon could be learning about the physical and psychological limits of the human body when faced with extreme environments. Of course, there were modules within the course that did not interest me as much as others, but I could still appreciate the importance of them and the impact they had on other areas. It also became apparent whilst studying and learning about different jobs within ergonomics - especially when searching for a work placement - just how many different areas of ergonomics there were. I had friends who specialised in health and safety, product design and job design within the defence, transport and pharmaceuticals industries as well as engineering, design and ergonomics consultancies whilst on their work placements. This diverse range of applications and different career paths that ergonomics can send you on is one that I am glad I am involved with, and keen to explore. I only wish I had discovered it sooner!