Ergonomics & Human Factors Engineering - Course & Test
Prioritizing ergonomics in product design enhances safety and reduces injury-related costs.
Physical and cognitive strain on a person using a product or a workstation can be measured rather than guessed at, and this course covers the assessment methods that do it. It opens with a full workstation ergonomic assessment, the Revised NIOSH lifting equation for manual material handling, and the graphical symbol and color coding standards that keep a workspace legible, then moves into cleanability as a design constraint, an applied paraglider parachute extraction ergonomics study, and the Steffen aircraft boarding method as an example of ergonomic thinking applied outside a factory floor.
Ergonomics is one of the few engineering disciplines with a direct, measurable link to injury rates and insurance cost, which makes this course a priority for any manufacturer running a manual assembly line, and equally relevant to a product developer designing a tool or appliance a consumer will hold repeatedly. This pool of existing content is thinner than the other courses on this list, and the missing items below, Rapid Upper Limb Assessment, Rapid Entire Body Assessment and formal anthropometric data, are the ones that would need to be written first to bring the course to full professional depth.
The Concepts & Tools to Learn in this Course:
These are the bodies of knowledge that will be assessed in the test below:
Workstation ergonomic assessment
Revised NIOSH lifting equation
Graphical symbols and color coding standards
Color coding benefits in product design
Design for cleanability
Form follows function applied to ergonomic design
Paraglider parachute extraction ergonomics case study
Steffen boarding method applied to logistics ergonomics
Interface form factor considerations related to human interaction
Introductory ergonomics case study
Rapid Upper Limb Assessment method
Rapid Entire Body Assessment method
ISO 11228 manual handling standard series
Anthropometric design data and percentile sizing
ISO 6385 ergonomic principles in work system design
Cognitive ergonomics and mental workload assessment
Vibration and noise exposure limits in equipment design
Reach envelope and workspace layout design
Fatigue and repetitive strain risk factors
Personal protective equipment interface design
Our Suggested Readings
The list below is a special selection of our original articles, tools and methodologies available on this site.
Tip: the big dot at the start of each title indicates if that post/article has already been read ( ● ), or not ( ○ ). Refresh the page if necessary.
Tip: the reading progress is recorded either in a cookie (if you are not logged in or no account created), or in your site profile. Use the later to be sure not to loose your progression.
As soon as you start a given article, your progress will be indicated on top of each page to help you finish and move on to the next.
Note: for this particular course, articles can be read in any order.
After you are familiar with the lectures above, so as having done your own readings, we recommend attending the Exam below.
The test consists of 20 questions in random order, out of many more, to insure novelty each time. Each completely correct answer gets you 10 points. You get a full correction at the end of the test.
If the course has different levels, the current test does not include questions of lower levels, making it … hardthat level!
radio-buttons: only 1 correct answer must be selected
check-boxes: 1 or several answers must be checked (with strict all-good-or-nothing grading logic)
Tip: mouse over “Hint” to get an advise for the response.
Only innovation.world members can see it below and attend it.
