This book's primary objective is to provide a comprehensive coverage of ergonomics in overall work system analysis and design. It provides a summary of the historical development of macroergonomics. It explains how an understanding of macroergonomics can lead to improvements in such things as reducing work-related lost time accidents; and describes the methods and tools used in work system analysis and design. Throughout, the integrating theme is that the full potential of an organization--in terms of productivity, safety, health, and Quality of Work Life (QWL)--can't be met unless the overall work system is designed to conform with the characteristics of its technology, personnel subsystem, and the external environment upon which it depends for its survival and success. Using a sociotechnical systems approach, this text discusses the application of macroergonomics to training system development, hazard management, technology transfer, large scale organizational change projects, office and factory automation, community planning and development, and job design. For each of these applications, actual case examples will be included. The book will appeal to teachers of introductory human factors/ergonomics courses as a supplemental text or as the primary text for a course fully devoted to macroergonomics. In addition, it should also appeal to practicing ergonomists internationally as a must add to their personal professional libraries.

This book seeks to extend the boundaries of aviation psychology in two interrelated ways: by broadening the focus of aviation psychology beyond the flight deck to the whole aviation system; and by discussing new theoretical developments which are shaping this applied discipline. A key feature of these theoretical advances is that they are grounded in a more developed, ecologically valid, understanding of practice. Among the issues addressed in this new integration of theory and practice are the following: what goes on in the flight deck is dependent on the wider organisational context; human factors issues in aircraft maintenance and grounding are critical to aviation safety; our capacity to learn from aviation accidents and incidents needs to be supported by more systematic human factors investigation and research; we must also develop our understanding of the human factors of accident survival as well as accident prevention; theories of crew coordination and decision making must be supported by an analysis of how decisions are actually made in the real world with all its stresses and constraints; training should be grounded in a thoroughgoing analysis of the complexity of the job and a full understanding of the training process itself. The text will be of interest to human factors researchers and practitioners in aviation and related areas. It will be of particular relevance to those who have a role in training, management or regulation throughout the aviation system.

Most aviation accidents are attributed to human error, pilot error especially. Human error also greatly effects productivity and profitability. In his overview of this collection of papers, the editor points out that these facts are often misinterpreted as evidence of deficiency on the part of operators involved in accidents. Human factors research reveals a more accurate and useful perspective: The errors made by skilled human operators - such as pilots, controllers, and mechanics - are not root causes but symptoms of the way industry operates. The papers selected for this volume have strongly influenced modern thinking about why skilled experts make errors and how to make aviation error resilient.