Meaning of ‘Ergons’ is ‘work’ and meaning of ‘Nomos’ is ‘natural
laws’. Thus Ergonomics is the study of the relationship between man and his
working environments. An Ergonomist
should have the knowledge of an engineer, psychologist, biometrician,
anatomist, physiologist and anthropologist. The main objective of ergonomics
study is optimizing the integration of man and machine and thus increasing the
work rate, efficiency and accuracy. Here first stage involves the design of
working environment suited to various requirements of the worker. In the second
stage, equipments, machinery and controls are designed in such a way that the
mental and physical strains of workers are decreased. The third stage involves the design of a
conductive environment for the smooth execution of tasks. Ergonomics is applied
in the design of working environments, work place and some other areas. In the
design of working environments and workplace, different factors which are worth taking care of are lighting, temperature, humidity, fresh air circulation, noise, bad odor, smokes, fumes, furniture placement, machine tools placement etc. Ergonomics is also applied in studies related to fatigue.
