WHAT IS PHYSICAL ERGONOMICS?

Definitions and Brief History Ergonomics is derived from the Greek ergon (‘‘work’’) and nomos (‘‘principle’’ or ‘‘law’’). Original attribution is debated but is usually given to the Polish professor Wojciech Jastrzebowski in a treatise published in 1857 and intended to represent the ‘‘science of work.’’ The same term seems to have been reinvented in 1949 by the British professor K. F. H. Murrell with the same general intended meaning. In the past decades ergonomics as a scientific and/ or engineering discipline has seen a dramatic increase in research and application as well as attention from the general public. As such, the original term has, in cases, lost some of its original meaning. Returning to these origins and to provide a focus for this chapter, the following definition does well to encompass the current state of ergonomics as having a theoretical and multidisciplinary basis, being concerned with humans in systems and ultimately driven by real-work application (Ref. 1): Ergonomics produces and integrates knowledge from the human sciences to match jobs, products, and environments to the physical and mental abilities and limitations of people. In doing so it seeks to safeguard safety, health and well being whilst optimising efficiency and performance. As a recognized professional domain, ergonomics is quite young, becoming formalized only after the World War II. Related efforts were certainly conducted much earlier, such as Borelli’s mechanical analysis of physical efforts in the late-seventeenth century and the identification of work-related musculoskeletal illnesses by Ramazzini in the early-eighteenth century. It was only in the 1950s, however, that researchers with expertise in engineering, psychology, and physiology began to come together to realize their common goals and approaches. Ergonomics continues to be an inherently multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary field, which will be evident in the remaining material presented in this chapter. 

Maury A. Nussbaum
Industrial and Systems Engineering
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, Virginia
Jaap H. van Diee¨n
Faculty of Human Movement Sciences
Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Mechanical Engineers’ Handbook: Materials and Mechanical Design, Volume 1, Third Edition.
Edited by Myer Kutz