Denis Alves Coelho

Purpose: This study explores first-line managers (FLMs) action strategies in handling disruptions to maintain operational stability and organizational resilience in manufacturing settings. Design/methodology/approach: The study adopts a qualitative, collaborative multiple-case study design in two Swedish manufacturing companies. Data were collected through 32 semi-structured interviews with FLMs and purposively sampled support functions and during 23 single- and joint company workshops plus company-specific documents. Findings: Our analysis reveals three levels of adaptability required of FLMs. At the highest level, we identified three distinct disruption-specific logics: negotiated coordination for personnel-based disruptions, procedural escalation for technical failures and goal-oriented improvisation for complexity-induced failures. These findings show that adaptability is not a generic skill but a targeted response tailored to the specific nature of the disruption. Originality/value: This study's primary contribution is the identification and analysis of three distinct disruption-specific logics (personnel-based, technical failure and complexity-induced) that require fundamentally different adaptive strategies from FLMs. By moving beyond a monolithic view of disruptions, we offer a novel, fine-grained conceptualization of how resilience is actively and situationally engineered on the front line.

The aim of this concept article is to articulate multiple contributions from socio-technical fields into an approach for sustaining human-centred lifecycle management of industrial systems. Widespread digitalization and advanced robotics have fostered interest on innovative human-machine integration and sophisticated organizational transformation that is conducive to meeting the challenges of sustainability. Complementing technology-driven and data-driven approaches to industrial systems development, the human factors approach offers a systems perspective that is at once human-centred while striving for overall system performance, by considering technological and organizational perspectives alike. The paper presents a set of recent human factors developments, selected based on their potential to advance sustainability in industrial systems, including an activity-centred design perspective of industrial systems, and a unified and entangled view on organizational goals yielding a dynamic change approach to socio-technical systems management. Moreover, developments in organizational resilience are coupled with recent breakthrough empirical understanding of conditions conducive to attaining resilience in operations. The cross-pollination of the human factors developments is further pursued, resulting in a proposal of combined key organizational vectors that can mutually leverage and sustain human-centred design and management of industrial systems (production and logistics systems alike) for resilience. Systems thinking encompassing human, organizational and technological perspectives supports integration of insights across entangled domains; this can leverage both system enhancements that promote the satisfaction of dynamic situation-dependent goals, as well as the fulfilment of objectives derived from long-term values of an organization.

Developing new manual computer pointing devices abiding to the requirements set out in ergonomic product design literature necessitates joining contributions from several areas, including the ergonomic guidelines applicable to hand tool design, human–system interaction, and certain user characteristics such as anthropometric data. Computer mice are hand tools enabling the interaction with the computer, for use by people from both sexes and practically all ages. Moreover, the PC mouse’s intensive usage is able to cause musculoskeletal disorders. This paper reports on a study aimed at developing new computer mouse shapes, reducing forearm pronation, and providing hand–palm holding, supported by a literature review and an adequate design methodology, starting from known shapes of commercial products, the traditional (horizontal) computer mouse, and the vertical computer mouse. In this regard, potential concepts were generated as solutions to the previously specified problem through a set of creative tasks based on the specifications. Four new shapes were proposed to be evaluated through an assessment matrix; as a result, two new PC mice geometries were designed and fully prototyped. This study also reports on selected results of usability and an electromyographic evaluation of the prototypes against three commercial PC mice (horizontal, slanted, and vertical) by a sample of 20 participants, supporting validation of the development process and the newly developed geometries, with emphasis on the slanted conical innovative shape.

In this chapter, occupational health and safety is approached from the viewpoints of both Human Factors and Ergonomics and standardization, including management systems standards. This chapter focuses mainly on OHS legislation, regulations, and voluntary standards in the EU and the U.S.A., as well as management systems. Great emphasis is given to OHSAS 18001 as a specification for an OHS management system. It is seen as an effective tool for guiding the design of a continuously improved OHS management system in an organization. The lessons learned from quality management systems reinforce the interest in a management system in the OHS area of an organization. Emphasis is also given to the advantages of integrating management systems within an organization (quality, environmental, and OHS).

Prevention of musculoskeletal disorders is supported by use of slanted rather than horizontal pointing devices, but user acceptance of the former may be compromised due to lower perceived ease of use. This study compares subjectively rated usability (N = 37) for three sizes of slanted computer mice and includes a horizontal small conventional device as a reference. For a random subset of the sample (n = 10), objective usability parameters were also elicited. Participants followed a standard protocol which is based on executing graphical pointing, steering, and dragging tasks generated by a purpose-built software. Subjective ratings were collected for each of the four pointing devices tested. The three slanted devices differed in size but were chosen because of an approximately similar slant angle (around 50–60 degrees relative to the horizontal plane). Additionally, effectiveness and efficiency were objectively calculated based on data recorded for the graphical tasks’ software for a random subset of the participants (n = 10). The results unveil small differences in preference in some of the subjective usability parameters across hand size groups. This notwithstanding, the objective efficiency results are aligned with the subjective results, indicating consistency with the hypothesis that smaller slanted devices relative to the user’s hand size are easier to use than larger ones. Mean values of weighted efficiency recorded in the study range from 68% to 75%, with differences across devices coherent with preference rank orders.

Introduction. The study assessed musculoskeletal complaints (MSCs) in administrative workers, associating MSCs with non-paid housework, home use of electronic devices and physical exercise, while keeping a distinctive gender approach. This may promote the development of more effective preventive measures, by meeting the specific strengths and weaknesses of each gender. Method. 96 administrative workers (58 women and 38 men) who used computers more than 50% of their working time participated in a cross-sectional study. A questionnaire concerning individual socio-demographic data, habits and lifestyle, and including the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ), was deployed. Gender based odd ratios for MSCs in body areas over the previous 12 months and correlation coefficients between habits and lifestyle variables and NMQ variables were computed. Results. Women did not incur a higher risk of MSC than men. Analysis of association did not yield meaningful associations for either gender. Results suggest giving future consideration to development of a gender specific preventive measures. Conclusion. Computerized work performed concomitantly with physical exposures outside the workplace, showed mixed associations with MSCs, according to gender and depending on kind of exposure. Results are indicative of the need for development of gender specific preventive measures.

The sustainability crisis entails high levels of complexity, not approachable from linear or reductionist stances. Unveiled from a holistic stance as a multilevel phenomenon characterized by qualitative novelty, emergence pertains to complex self‐organizing systems. Emergent properties and behaviors arise only when system parts interact in a wider whole. This article positions emergence for enhancing solution processes to meet sustainability challenges. It proposes the systemic approach as a catalyst for the emergence of wise creative solutions tackling wicked unsustainability problems. This requires observation and entails analyzing open systems altogether and recognizing the impact of navigating across macro‐ and micro‐scales on causal and creative emergence. Sustainable development requires circumventing past conventional practices, in an accelerated way. The emergence phenomenon at work between systems levels, coupled with purposefully structured creative processes, holds the potential for catalyzing sustainable development efforts. Systemic analysis at varying scales is to foster creative emergence aligned with sustainability‐oriented innovation.

BACKGROUND: Static muscular activity of muscles activated in the use of the conventional PC mouse is believed to represent a higher risk for the musculoskeletal health of the user than dynamic muscular activity. OBJECTIVE: This paper presents a compounded muscular activity dynamics indicator (akin to percent relative range), enabling comparison between computer handheld pointing devices. METHODS: This muscular dynamism approach considers baseline muscular activity (APL, ECR, ECU and ED) relative to the Maximum Voluntary Contraction as well as the dynamics of muscular activation. The latter is computed as the ratio of the difference between APDF90 and APDF10 divided by APDF50 (APDF-Amplitude Probability Distribution Function for the 90th, 50th and 10th percentiles). The paper demonstrates the approach with results of comparative evaluation of a horizontal, a slanted and a vertical PC mouse, through surface EMG monitoring of 20 participants performing standardized graphical task with the devices. RESULTS: Hand size impacts muscular activity dynamics in these four muscles, which supersedes differences in device geometry, across the range of devices tested. CONCLUSION: Smaller devices relative to hand size foster more dynamic muscular activity.