NEW TRENDS OF ERGONOMICS AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN
MODERN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Cheng Changxian
School of Information and Mechatronic Engineering, Beijing Institute of Graphic Communications
Xinghua Beilu No. 25, Daxing, Beijing 102600, P.R. China
Keywords: Ergonomics, Industrial design, Green design.
Abstract: Today’s industrial design has gone beyond the traditional product design. China is in the transfer process
from the world's manufacturing plant to the world's manufacturing center. Chinese manufacturing industry
is transiting from mass production and mass marketing to brand competition and design competition;
China’s industrial design is moving from design for products and design for industrial enterprises to design
for the market and users, and from basic industries- and technology-oriented model to sales- and marketing-
oriented and brand- and user-oriented model. The importance of implementing user-friendly design
principles and applying ergonomic principles to sustainable design in industrial design is increasingly
becoming the consensus of the industries. And it’s vitally important to understand fully the importance of
ergonomics to the development of modern industrial design, the characteristics of modern ergonomics and
its research targets, and the green design concept as one of the development trends of ergonomics.
1 FULLY UNDERSTAND THE
IMPORTANCE OF
ERGONOMICS TO THE
DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Today’s industrial design has gone beyond the
traditional product design. China is in the transfer
process from the world's manufacturing plant to the
world's manufacturing center. Chinese
manufacturing industry is transiting from mass
production and mass marketing to brand competition
and design competition; China’s industrial design is
moving from design for products and design for
industrial enterprises to design for the market and
users, and from basic industries- and technology-
oriented model to sales- and marketing-oriented and
brand- and user-oriented model. Digitalized life,
economic globalization, infrastructure management,
climate change, consumer factors will influence the
worldwide trends in industrial design.
The situation of industrial enterprises’ success by
relying solely on technology, human resources and
cost has become in the past. People have begun to
emphasis more on the design management model
which integrates together brand, technology,
marketing, strategy and innovativeness, which is the
development model of design needed to promote
Chinese enterprises to transfer from the world’s
processing base to the world’s manufacturing center.
The innovative design as an important strategy for
enterprises’ innovation development has become the
consensus of the academia and the industry.
We see more and more manufacturers take
"people oriented", "ergonomic design" as the
characteristics of their products to be advertised,
especially those products that require direct contact
with the body or the direct manual operation are
more prominent. In fact, letting the design of the
machine equipment and working and living
environment suit to people's physiological and
psychological characteristics, so one can work and
live in a comfortable and convenient conditions, is
the issue to be addressed by ergonomics. In other
words, ergonomics is such an engineering science
arising from solving the problems.
The scope of ergonomics is of very broad range,
which is based on the studying of human physiology
and psychology. It is to apply directly the practical
science, and the technical sciences to the actual
operation, and is the origin of the human body
engineering. Ergonomics studies human as the most
fundamental and direct research and service object,
543
Changxian C..
NEW TRENDS OF ERGONOMICS AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN MODERN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN.
DOI: 10.5220/0003584305430547
In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (PMSS-2011), pages 543-547
ISBN: 978-989-8425-56-0
Copyright
c
2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
so all the information must get from the people and
hence the judgments would be made based on the
integrated information. Ergonomics is the
application of human-related science information to
the design of objects, systems and environment,
which involves every aspects of human life. Ideal
designs should be reflect fully the principles of
ergonomics in working system, sports, leisure, health
and safety and other aspects.
The characteristic of ergonomics is based on a
careful study of their own characteristics of the three
elements, i.e. human, machine and environment. It
does not simply focus on whether the individual
elements are good or not, but studies as a whole the
system which includes human that employees the
"objects", the "objects" designed by the designer and
the coexistence environment of the "objects" and
human. The so called system in the ergonomics is
referred to as "human - machine - environment"
system. In this system, the relationship of interacting
and interdependence of the three elements of human,
machine and environment determines the
performance of overall system. Ergonomics makes
scientific use of the organic links between the three
elements to seek the best parameters of the system.
A good design must be the product in which the
factors of human, environment, technology,
economy and culture etc., are cleverly balanced. To
this end, it is required that the designers have the
ability to find an optimal balance in a variety of
constraints. To evaluate and determine the standard
of the optimal balance point based on the common
goal of both ergonomics and industrial design, the
"human-oriented" dominant ideology should be
adhere to as the core of design.
The "human-oriented" dominant ideology is
represented in every design activity to put “people”
as the main line and implement the main line of
ergonomic theory throughout the entire design
process. And the social development, technological
advances, product updates, intense pace of life ..., all
these will inevitably lead to the changing view of
quality towards "object". People will pay more
attention to the evaluation of the weighing of
"convenience", "comfortable", "reliable", "value",
"security" and "efficiency". The rapid development
and wide application of ergonomics and other
emerging interdisciplinary will surely push the
standard of industrial design to the new heights
sought by people.
With full development of mechanization,
automation, and information technology, the
influence of human factors in product design and
production is increasing; the issue of harmonious
development of man-machine will be more and more
important; the status and role of ergonomics in
industrial design will show more increasingly its
importance.
2 FULLY UNDERSTAND THE
CHARACTERISTICS OF
MODERN ERGONOMICS AND
ITS RESEARCH TARGETS
Modern ergonomics began its development stage
from the beginning of 1960s. During this period,
Europe and the United States entered into the large-
scale economic development period. At the same
time, ergonomics have undergone more
opportunities of advancement because of scientific
and technological progress. As the research and
application fields in which ergonomics involves are
expanding, the number of professions and disciplines
in which the ergonomics experts undertake their
research are also increasing, which include anatomy,
physiology, psychology, industrial hygiene science,
industrial and engineering design, work study,
construction and lighting engineering, management
engineering and other professional fields.
International Ergonomics Association (IEA)
accounts that the engineering development of
modern ergonomics has the following three
characteristics:
1) Different from the traditional ergonomics which
had its studies focused on the selecting and training a
specific person to adapt the work requirements,
modern ergonomics focuses on the design of the
mechanical equipment, so that the operation of
machine does not exceed beyond the limits of human
ability.
2) Combine closely with the practical application.
The specific machinery and equipment are designed
through a wide range of carefully planned
experimental research and by utilizing as much as
possible the known basic principles.
3) Strive to make the experts and the scientific
research staff in various related engineering and
science areas work together closely, such as the
experts in experimental psychology, physiology,
functional anatomy and other disciplines, and the
research staff in physics, mathematics, engineering
etc.
For industrial designers, the main research areas of
ergonomics can be summarized as follows:
ICEIS 2011 - 13th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems
544
2.1 Human Characteristics
The main object of research is human-related issues
in industrial design, for example, the characteristic
facts of human body shape, transmission of human
perception, human response characteristics, and the
psychological characteristics during working. The
goal of study is solving how the design of
mechanical equipment, tools, and a variety of
workplaces and other facilities and articles can adapt
human physiological and psychological
characteristics such that it would be possible to
create a safe, comfortable, healthy and efficient
working conditions for the users.
2.2 Overall Design of Man-machine
System
The performance of man-machine system depends
primarily on the overall design. That is, to adapt the
"machine" with the human body as a whole. What
the basic reasons of successfully coordination of
human and machine? The answer is: either man or
machine has their own characteristics, and the
deficiencies of both man and machine in the system
can be complemented by each other. “Machine” has
big power, fast speed, and no fatigue, etc., but
“human” has the wisdom, multiple skills and a very
strong adaptability. If you can do your best to make
up for each other's deficiencies, then the
combination of man and machine will be effective.
Obviously, the basic design problem of the system to
be disposed is the division of work between human
and machine and the effective exchange of
information between the two.
2.3 Design of Workplace and
Information Transmission Devices
Whether workplace design is reasonable will have a
direct impact on human’s productivity. Workplace
design generally including: work space design,
seating design, operating table or console design and
the overall arrangement of the workplace. All these
designs require the application of knowledge and
data from anthropometry and biomechanics. The
purpose of workplace design studies is to ensure that
the physical environment could suit for the
characteristics of the human body and the human
body could work in a healthier position and posture,
so that not only to complete the work efficiently, but
also to feel comfortable and not to fatigue too early.
2.4 Design of Environmental Control
and Safety Protection
Broadly speaking, efficiency studied in ergonomics,
not only refers to the work undertaken to be
completed in the short period, but is not present
harmful health effects in the long term work and to
reduce the risk of accidents to a minimum limits. In
terms of the environmental control requirement, it
should ensure that the common operating
environment such as lighting, microclimate, noise
and vibration conditions suit to the operator’s
demands.
It is the basic task of the designers to protect the
operator from the "pain, illness, injury, or casualty
caused by work. Thus in the design phase, safety
guards devices are designed as parts of the machine
and the protective devices should directly link into
the machine. In addition, the operator's safety
training before using the machines should be
considered and the individual protection for the
operator during the use needs to be researched.
3 FULLY UNDERSTAND THE
GREEN DESIGN CONCEPT AS
ONE OF THE DEVELOPMENT
TRENDS OF ERGONOMICS
Green Design (GD), is also known as eco-design,
environmental design, life cycle design, or
environmental awareness design. Although the
names are different, but the basic idea is that: the
environmental factors and pollution prevention
measures should be incorporated into products in the
design phase, to take the environmental performance
as product design objectives and the starting point;
and striving to minimize the impact of products to
environment.
What is the so-called green design? That is,
under the guidance of ecological philosophy, and
using ecological thinking, to incorporate the design
of objects into "human, machine, environment"
system, which both considers to meet the needs of
people, and pays attention to the principles of the
ecological environment protection and sustainable
development, and not only realizes social values, but
also protects the natural environment and promotes
the common prosperity of people and the
environment. It is consistent with the requirements
of sustainable development of human society, in line
with the ultimate goal of comprehensive
development of mankind.
Green design is the basis of access to green
products, and has become one of the hot researches
in design areas. The results show that the design
phase determines the 70% to 80% of manufacturing
cost, while the design itself accounts for only 10% of
NEW TRENDS OF ERGONOMICS AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN MODERN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
545
the total cost. The importance of the roll of design to
product is still increasing if considering the
environmental factors. Because the level of
ecological damage caused by the product design is
far greater than the level of ecological damage
caused by the design process itself, only in the
design stage should the "green level" of products be
taken as a design target, the desired design result
could be achieved, which is one of the goal of
ergonomics.
Green design and traditional design are very
different in the design basis, the designer, design
techniques and technologies and the design targets,
See Table 1 on green design compared with
traditional designs.
In sum, the main features of green design include
the following:
1) Slow down the consumption of resource wealth
on the planet. With green design, the materials for
making components of the product are fully and
effectively utilized, and in the product life cycle, the
energy consumption is minimized, thus reducing the
needs for material and energy resources, so that it
can be consumed in a reasonable and sustainable
way.
2) Reduce waste generation from the source. It’s a
basic requirement for green designer to reduce
energy consumption in the structure and process of
product making and use. There will be no toxin and
side effects and the dismantling and recycling of the
old used products can be convenient. The recycled
materials can be used for reproduction. The products
of non-recovery value can be innoxiously disposed
so that the atmosphere, water, etc., cannot be
polluted and the generated waste can be minimized.
3) Reduce the disposal problem of large amount of
waste. Green design will nip the waste generation in
the bud, so the amount of waste can be reduced to a
minimum, which can greatly ease the pressure of
waste disposal. help protect the environment,
maintain ecosystem balance and achieve sustainable
development.
4) Green design is the design of parallel closed-
loop. The life cycle of traditional parallel design is
all the stages from design, manufacture up to
disposal of the product. All the post stages after the
product disposal are not considered. Hence it is an
open-loop process. Whereas the life cycle of green
design, in addition to the traditional life cycle, also
includes the disassembly, recycling, treatment after
product disposal, so that the closed-loop cycle of
product life cycle can be achieved.
4 CONCLUSIONS
China is in the transfer process from the world's
manufacturing plant to the world's manufacturing
center. Chinese manufacturing industry is transiting
from mass production and mass marketing to brand
competition and design competition; China’s
industrial design is moving from design for products
and design for industrial enterprises to design for the
market and users, and from basic industries- and
technology-oriented model to sales- and marketing-
oriented and brand- and user-oriented model. The
importance of implementing user-friendly design
principles and applying ergonomics principles to
sustainable design in industrial design is increasingly
becoming the consensus of the industries. So, it’s
vitally important to understand fully the importance
of ergonomics to the development of modern
industrial design, the characteristics of modern
ergonomics and its research targets, and the green
Table 1: Comparison of green design with traditional design.
Comparison elements Traditional design Green design
Design basis Design based on the product’s requirements on
function, performance, quality and cost
proposed by users
Design based on environmental benefits and ecological
indicators plus the requirements of product on features,
performance, quality and cost
Designers With little or no consideration of using
effectively renewable resources and the impact
on ecological environment
The designer must consider to reduce energy
consumption, to recycle resource and to protect the
environment in the product concept and design stage
Design technology and
process
Product recycling is rarely considered in the
stages of making and use. Only a limited
recovery of precious metals.
Removable, easy recovery, non-toxic side effects during
manufacture and use of product, ensuring minimum
waste generation
Design purpose Demands are considered as the main design
purpose
Design based on the needs and environment to meet the
requirements of sustainable development
Products General products Green products or products with green sign
ICEIS 2011 - 13th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems
546
design concept as one of the development trends of
ergonomics.
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rd
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Sanders, M. S., et al., 1985. Human Factors in
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Wang Jicheng, 2006. Ergonomics in Product Design,
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