“The Human Connection” is a comprehensive set of clear and resonant
stories that illustrate the impact of ergonomics and human factors. The
60-page document is intended to be of value to a wide range of
audiences, including government, policy makers, industry, third sector
groups, educators, research funders, regulatory bodies and
collaborators. The case studies, available here as the complete set or
individually, have been written to increase understanding of the
complexity, range and value of the discipline of ergonomics and human
factors.
The origins of the publication
Professor Sarah Sharples, CIEHF president 2015-2016, came up with the idea for this publication after discussions about the need for evidence that would help us to spread the word about the value of ergonomics to a broad audience. She says "We are very fortunate that ergonomics and human factors spans so many different contexts, from healthcare, energy, transport and manufacture, but this also presents a challenge in representing such a broad range of activities in an accessible way."
So after distributing a call for contributions to our membership, and receiving a number of submissions of work that had been done, in October, a small working group set about identifying criteria for selection of case studies, and worked through each submitted case study. They also worked through the key messages that we wanted to communicate to industry, educators, policy makers and research funders.
After effort from many people, this publication aims to demonstrate how ergonomics and human factors can improve lives, business and society. We have received endorsements for the document from Nicky Morgan, MP for Loughborough, and Professor Andrew McNaughton, Technical Director of HS2. The document begins with an outline of the priorities for industry, policy makers, research funders and educators which we identified during the thought leadership workshop. We then follow with a very brief overview of some of the goals of ergonomics and human factors, to enable people who are not so familiar with our discipline to understand our particular methods and approaches. We then present the 24 case studies that cover a wide range of sectors.