2015 Liberty Mutual Best Paper Award winner Dr. Judy Village (right) with Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors President, Professor Sarah Sharples (left).
June 15, 2015 - Hopkinton, Mass. – Researchers from Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada, have received the 2015 Liberty Mutual Award for research supporting early integration of human factors in organizational design processes. The winning paper, describes an action research study in ergonomics in which the researcher participates in the iterative organizational design, while simultaneously considering further actions to promote learning for both the organization and the researchers. The award was presented at the 2015 Annual Conference of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors held recently at Staverton Park in Daventry, UK.
The winning researchers from Ryerson University include Judy Village, Ph.D., CCPE, Human Factors Engineering Lab research associate; Michael Greig, MA.Sc., Industrial Engineering graduate student; Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng., Mechanical Engineering department professor; Saeed Zolfaghari, Ph.D., P.Eng., Industrial Engineering professor, and W. Patrick Neumann, Ph.D., Eur. Erg Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering associate professor.
“We identified the paper as a substantive demonstration of human factors engineering in practice,” says Roger Haslam, coordinating editor of Ergonomics. “The editors were particularly impressed with how the study addressed the complexities of implementing human factors engineering within an organization using the action research framework.”
The winning paper describes action research cycles (plan, act, observe, and reflect) over a three-year period. Engineers and human factors specialists from Ryerson University collaborated with a large electronics manufacturer to help improve the organization’s ability to proactively integrate human factors into their assembly design process. Researchers recorded and analyzed interviews, meetings, workshops, and reflections and results were used to inform new actions. Actions to integrate human factors were ongoing, unplanned, and embedded in the research process. Researchers constantly questioned assumptions, reflected, and consulted literature and theory to discover how to frame human factors to “fit” within the organization’s engineering team. By helping navigate the people and processes, demonstrating human factors tools, interpreting actions and meanings, and coaching the specialists to continue human factors integration independently, researchers acted as a catalyst to the macro-ergonomics change that occurred despite downsizing and management turnover in the organization.
In 2010, Dr. Village enrolled at Ryerson University to conduct this investigation as part of a PhD in Industrial Engineering, after 25 years as a practicing ergonomist conducting research, consulting and teaching in ergonomics. She says, “After years of trying to fix human factors problems after they were designed into workplaces, my goal was to find ways for human factors to be integrated earlier into engineering design processes. I’m honored that the lessons we learned have made a contribution to the ergonomics research and practice community.”
The winning paper, “An ergonomics action research demonstration: integrating human factors into assembly design processes” (Ergonomics, Vol. 57, No. 10, pp. 1574–1589, 2014) is available online through Taylor & Francis Group.
The Best Paper Award promotes excellence in safety and health research. The annual Award, established in 2005 by the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety and the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, recognizes the paper published in the journal Ergonomics that best contributes to the advancement of ergonomics. The editors of Ergonomics select the winner from all of the papers published in the journal over the given year.
About Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety
Owned and operated by Liberty Mutual Insurance, the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety is an internationally recognized safety and health research facility. Through laboratory and field-based investigations, the Research Institute seeks to advance scientific, business-relevant knowledge in workplace, built environment, driving safety and disability. Research findings, published in the open, peer reviewed literature, are shared with the worldwide health and safety community and are used to develop recommendations, guidelines, and interventions to help reduce injury and disability.
About Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors
The Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, founded in 1949, is the professional body for researchers and practitioners in the field of ergonomics, with an international membership in excess of 1,700. Its aim is to promote the awareness, education and application of ergonomics in industry, commerce, public sector and government.
Contact: researchinstitute@libertymutual.com
