Two ‘Micro’ IDC Field Investigations Requiring ‘Macro’ Interventions

• Published in: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting 2004-09, Vol.48 (14), p.1596-1600
• Main Authors: Scott, P. A., Christie, C. J., Renz, M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1541-9312; 1071-1813; 2169-5067
• DOI: 10.1177/154193120404801408

In industrially developing countries where there are so many minor to major problems across the broad spectrum of basic to sophisticated work sites, and where there is little knowledge of ergonomics, the very limited number of qualified Ergonomists are often ‘forced’ into taking a micro or macro approach to deal with the immediate problem as soon and as effectively as possible. Two recent requests for an investigation of the Human Operator–Task interaction (micro level) reiterated the clear need for a micro-macro approach in the analysis of any work site no matter what the reported problems are. Two contrasting sites were investigated and although the overt problems had been correctly identified at both sites, the underlying ‘organisation’ causes were not so obvious to management. The authors suggest that the poor working conditions so prevalent in IDCs is the ideal arena to reiterate the need to consider central and peripheral components in order to establish Hendrick's (1996) “Organisational Synergism”.