The strategic value of ergonomics for companies

Jan Dul ()

Industrial Organization from EconWPA

Abstract: The discipline of ergonomics studies the interaction between man and the designed technical and organizational environment. In product ergonomics, this knowledge is used to develop user-friendly products and in production ergonomics to design human-friendly (production) processes. Beside social goals, ergonomics can contribute to economic goals of an organization. With user-friendly products, a company can deliver benefits to its customers, which exceed those of competing products. With human-friendly production processes, a company can increase labor productivity and consequently can reach important cost-reductions. The growing consciousness of the importance of humans (customers and workers) for the success of organizations, implies that ergonomics can have a strategic value for the management of organizations. In this paper a model is presented how ergonomics can be integrated in the decision-making and design processes of organizations, and examples are given to show possible business benefits.

Keywords: Competitive advantage; labor productivity; human centered design; product development; process development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec
Date: 2005-01-10
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 5
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpio:0501006

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