Indicators for managing human centred manufacturing

Establishing indicators for managing human factors (HF) aspects in the design of production systems remains a challenge. We address the problem in two dimensions – firstly, what aspects of HF are to be considered, and secondly, where in the development process HF is to be measured. In these dimensions a large number of HF metrics are possible in the perceptual, cognitive, physical and psychosocial domains of HF. The relevance of these measures to injury, productivity, quality and organizational strategy continue to be poorly understood. From this perspective we make propositions on the need for: 1) strategic HF metrics selection, 2) metrics application throughout the development process, 3) predictive ‘virtual’ HF metrics approaches, 4) metrics based design guidelines, 5) connecting metrics with design choices and strategies, 6) integrating HF metrics within existing approaches, 7) continuous improvement of the metrics system, and 8) the need to evaluate metrics system quality.