Esta dissertação apresenta a análise ergonômica do trabalho no setor de envase de hidroalcoólicos, de uma empresa de artigos de perfumaria e cosméticos na região metropolitana de Curitiba. A ferramenta Design Macroergonômico (DM), proposta por Fogliatto e Guimarães (1999), permitiu identificar os itens de demanda ergonômica dos usuários e evidenciou diferenças entre as demandas de usuários que realizam as mesmas tarefas em turnos diferentes. As questões de organização do trabalho são as que mais afetam os funcionários, principalmente aqueles que trabalham em turnos que incorporam o trabalho no sábado. Como antes da ampliação da fábrica, o trabalho estava organizado sem o turno de sábado, e tendo em vista o impacto negativo deste horário sobre as pessoas, propõe-se que a organização de trabalho seja revista. / The present dissertation shows the ergonomic analysis of the work performed in the hydroalcohol product bottling sector at a perfume and cosmetics industry located in the Curitiba metropolitan region. The Macroergonomic Design (MD) tool, proposed by Fogliatto and Guimarães (1999), allowed us to identify the users’ ergonomic demand and ergonomic demand items highlighting the differences existing between the demands of users performing the same task but in different shifts. The issues involving work organization are the ones that mostly affect the company employees, mainly those whose work shift include working on Saturdays. Seeing that before the plant enlargement there was no Saturday shift, and taking into consideration the negative impact the establishment of such shift has on the employees, we propose reviewing the work organization.

Esta dissertação apresenta a análise ergonômica do trabalho no setor de envase de hidroalcoólicos, de uma empresa de artigos de perfumaria e cosméticos na região metropolitana de Curitiba. A ferramenta Design Macroergonômico (DM), proposta por Fogliatto e Guimarães (1999), permitiu identificar os itens de demanda ergonômica dos usuários e evidenciou diferenças entre as demandas de usuários que realizam as mesmas tarefas em turnos diferentes. As questões de organização do trabalho são as que mais afetam os funcionários, principalmente aqueles que trabalham em turnos que incorporam o trabalho no sábado. Como antes da ampliação da fábrica, o trabalho estava organizado sem o turno de sábado, e tendo em vista o impacto negativo deste horário sobre as pessoas, propõe-se que a organização de trabalho seja revista. / The present dissertation shows the ergonomic analysis of the work performed in the hydroalcohol product bottling sector at a perfume and cosmetics industry located in the Curitiba metropolitan region. The Macroergonomic Design (MD) tool, proposed by Fogliatto and Guimarães (1999), allowed us to identify the users’ ergonomic demand and ergonomic demand items highlighting the differences existing between the demands of users performing the same task but in different shifts. The issues involving work organization are the ones that mostly affect the company employees, mainly those whose work shift include working on Saturdays. Seeing that before the plant enlargement there was no Saturday shift, and taking into consideration the negative impact the establishment of such shift has on the employees, we propose reviewing the work organization.

Esta dissertação apresenta a análise ergonômica do trabalho no setor de envase de hidroalcoólicos, de uma empresa de artigos de perfumaria e cosméticos na região metropolitana de Curitiba. A ferramenta Design Macroergonômico (DM), proposta por Fogliatto e Guimarães (1999), permitiu identificar os itens de demanda ergonômica dos usuários e evidenciou diferenças entre as demandas de usuários que realizam as mesmas tarefas em turnos diferentes. As questões de organização do trabalho são as que mais afetam os funcionários, principalmente aqueles que trabalham em turnos que incorporam o trabalho no sábado. Como antes da ampliação da fábrica, o trabalho estava organizado sem o turno de sábado, e tendo em vista o impacto negativo deste horário sobre as pessoas, propõe-se que a organização de trabalho seja revista. / The present dissertation shows the ergonomic analysis of the work performed in the hydroalcohol product bottling sector at a perfume and cosmetics industry located in the Curitiba metropolitan region. The Macroergonomic Design (MD) tool, proposed by Fogliatto and Guimarães (1999), allowed us to identify the users’ ergonomic demand and ergonomic demand items highlighting the differences existing between the demands of users performing the same task but in different shifts. The issues involving work organization are the ones that mostly affect the company employees, mainly those whose work shift include working on Saturdays. Seeing that before the plant enlargement there was no Saturday shift, and taking into consideration the negative impact the establishment of such shift has on the employees, we propose reviewing the work organization.

To compete in today's global economy, organizations are under pressure to improve their product development processes. The engineering design process is an important component of the overall product development process. This research considers the relationship of both social and technical variables to the engineering design process. The theoretical foundation of this research is sociotechnical systems theory. This theory states that optimum performance is achieved by jointly considering the technical and the social subsystems. The application domain of the theory is called macroergonomics. A technical variable considered by this research was engineering design process methodology. Two methodologies were considered: sequential engineering and concurrent engineering. Another technical construct considered by this research was the use of computer-supported cooperative work technology (CSCW) or groupware. The social variable considered by this research was group size. Two sizes were considered: large groups of six people and small groups of three people. This research sought to determine the optimum combination of technical and social variables that would result in highest performance. There were two phases of this research. In the first phase, a laboratory experiment was conducted using 180 engineering and building construction students as subjects. The experiment required that a system be conceived, designed, manufactured, and tested by student teams. The experimental design was a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial, between subjects design with five teams in each cell. In the second phase, the results of the first phase were provided to recognized industry and academic experts for their critique. This two-phased approach facilitated the identification of causal relationships among social and technical variables with higher external validity. In the laboratory experiment, there was no significant difference in performance between concurrent engineering groups and sequential engineering processes. Small groups significantly outperformed large groups in all conditions. CSCW did not significantly improve the performance of large or small groups. Participants in the experiment were equally satisfied with all conditions. The external survey strongly endorsed the superiority of concurrent engineering as compared to sequential engineering. There was no statistically significant optimal combination of variables that resulted in the highest design performance. / Ph. D.

The goal of this research was to investigate communication media and feedback learning cues for tutoring. A macroergonomic perspective was used to identify three sociotechnical variables associated with tutoring assistance: problem analyzability, communication media, and learning feedback cues. A four-phase problem solving approach was used in all trials. The communication media consisted of collocated communication, email, a chatroom, and video teleconferencing. The learning feedback cue was a non-verbal mechanism for subjects to provide the tutor with immediate information about their understanding throughout the problem. Subjects participated in a total of eight trials over a four-week time period. The analysis accuracy, process time, and user satisfaction indicated that the four-phase problem solving approach was not important in the interpretation of the results. In each problem-solving phase and for the overall tutoring process, technical performance (e.g., accuracy and speed of problem solving) and user satisfaction were measured to determine the most effective communication technology (or technologies) for tutoring students. The results of this study indicated that the accuracy was similar for all experimental conditions. However, the speed of problem solving was generally faster for audio-visual communication than text-based communication. In all phases, subjects were significantly more satisfied in conditions without feedback cues. And in general, satisfaction was higher in collocated communication and the chatroom compared to email; satisfaction was generally higher in collocated communication compared to video teleconferencing. There was no evidence that computer-mediated communication improved the tutoring process. However, important design implications existed for tutoring systems with limited resources. Through computer-mediated communication, a single tutor could assist many students at one time. The chatroom appeared to be a condition that would be an effective communication medium for spatially dispersed tutoring. Although the tutoring process required significantly more time to complete using the chatroom compared to collocated communication, accuracy and satisfaction measures were similar between collocated communication and the chatroom. / Master of Science

The purpose of this research was to determine how team design and project management (planning and tracking) affected planning and design performance and the people involved in the process. A laboratory study was conducted to evaluate three factors: team design (individuals versus groups of three), project support (no project support versus manual project support versus automated project support), and the engineering design life-cycle, which includes conceptual design, preliminary design, and detailed design. There were six observations per treatment, involving a total of 72 undergraduate engineering students. The impact of these factors were evaluated for planning time, design cycle time, cost effectiveness, cost variance, schedule variance, mental workload, and job satisfaction. For treatments that called for groups, group process was evaluated in addition to group workload. The results showed groups took 61% more time to plan their projects compared to individuals (p<0.01). Planning time was 31% longer for participants with manual support compared to those with automated project support (p<0.01). Schedule variance (p<0.01) and cost variance (p<0.001) decreased 24% and 23%, respectively, over time during the design process. The design cycle time was 17% longer for participants without project support compared to those with automated project support (p<0.05). During design, groups and individuals allocated their time differently (p<0.05). Mental workload, measured with the NASA Task Load Index (TLX), showed workload increased 16% over time (p<0.001). In addition, the combination of design phase and project tracking support affected the TLX (p<0.01). Job satisfaction was 5% lower at the end of the design project compared to the beginning of design (p<0.05). From the analysis on group process, the type of project support affected the group process during planning. Groups with manual support interacted 83% more than those with automated support (effective behaviors: p<0.01; ineffective behaviors: p<0.05). During design, the roles individuals played within the group affected how much they contributed to the group's process (effective behaviors: p<0.0001; ineffective behaviors: p<0.01). There were several practical implications that can be drawn from this study. In the decision to use teams versus groups, there was evidence that groups were able to attend to more of the design requirements than individuals, which resulted in the design of systems with higher reliability. However the tradeoff of using groups were in the labor cost and in longer planning and status report meetings. Therefore the organization's goals need to be carefully considered before selecting the team design. For project support, there were clear benefits to automating the planning process. Automation resulted in better Gantt chart and planning sessions that were completed more quickly compared to those with manual support. Furthermore, systems designed with automated support resulted in lower design costs compared to systems designed without project support. / Ph. D.

Current organizational design changes such as restructuring, production advancements, and information technology improvements have caused many organizations to move to flatter management structures. Changes in the organizational structure along with the demand for improved performance have broadened the scope of responsibilities for first-level managers in manufacturing organizations. First-level managers are required to balance their time to meet greater demands. The sociotechnical systems principle of joint optimization states that organizations function optimally when design changes are made to meet the needs of both the social and technical subsystems in the context of the organization's environment. This study uses time allotment at the supervisory level to operationalize the sociotechnical systems principle of joint optimization. Ninety-one first-level managers from both the production and distribution areas of thirteen North American facilities participated in this study. Four survey instruments were used to measure the following dimensions: joint optimization, department performance, time allotment to the social and technical subsystems, and organizational values of appropriate time use. Five time allotment constructs emerged from the data collected on time use in the social and technical subsystems. These were time spent on Participation and Information Sharing, Customer Needs and Strategic Planning, Skill Development and Compensation, Quality, and Department Operational Needs. The results indicated time allotment constructs along with the organization's values on appropriate time use can be used to predict both joint optimization and performance at the department level. The results also indicated a strong relationship (r = .607, p < .05) between level of joint optimization and department performance. / Master of Science

Participatory ergonomics (PE) is a macroergonomics approach in which the end-users actively participate in developing and implementing the technology. PE can be an effective method for involving front-line workers in analyzing and redesigning their own jobs. PE can be used at the macro-level, the micro-level, or somewhere in between. At the macro-level, the focus of the PE program is across an entire organization or work system. At the micro-level, the focus of a PE approach is on a particular task, workstation, or product. A major benefit for using PE is that workers are more likely to accept changes to their job if they participate in the redesign. Furthermore, workers' motivation, job satisfaction, and knowledge are enhanced through the participatory process. There are many case studies that describe successful PE approaches. These studies, however, lack a control group or comparison group and so changes in the workplace (e.g., a reduction of musculoskeletal injury) cannot be attributed directly to the interventions resulting from the PE program with certainty. Quantifying the effects of PE is difficult because of problems in trying to isolate variables. Confounding variables are often difficult to contain. This study quantified some of the effects of PE by utilizing a controlled experimental design in the laboratory in which participants analyzed and redesigned a manual material handling job. The effects of this PE approach were quantified by measuring a reduction of risk factors associated with the job and by measuring a lift index of the lifting task that indicates a risk for injury. Many authors state or infer that some degree of ergonomics training should be given to the participants in a PE approach. However, the effects of providing ergonomics training to participants in these types of participatory approaches are unclear. This research evaluates the effects of providing the participants with basic ergonomics instruction relevant to the job being evaluated and redesigned. Also, this research suggests if the NIOSH lifting equation can be an effective tool in a participatory ergonomics approach in the redesign of a manual material handling job that involves lifting tasks. A 2-factor, between-subjects design was used. Participants consisted of 32 volunteers (16 males and 16 females). Only individuals that have had no prior ergonomics knowledge were considered for the subject pool. Participants performed a simulated manual material handling job in the laboratory. After performing the job, some subjects were given ergonomics training and/or instructed on how to use the NIOSH lifting equation for manual lifting tasks. The participants were then asked to redesign the original job. The participants' redesigns were compared to the redesigns of the control subjects (who received no ergonomics instruction and did not use the NIOSH lifting equation). The subjects who received the ergonomics instruction identified significantly more risk factors in the original job and eliminated significantly more risk factors in the redesign than the control subjects. The subjects who learned and used the NIOSH lifting equation also identified significantly more risk factors in the original job but did not eliminate significantly more risk factors in the redesign. The subjects who received the ergonomics instruction and who used the NIOSH lifting equation were not shown to have an advantage over the subjects who received the ergonomics instruction alone. The group that received the ergonomics training performed optimally with respect to the other experimental groups. Implications for participatory ergonomics approaches are discussed. / Master of Science

Centrada em uma análise macroergonômica, esta pesquisa teve como objetivo identificar os problemas mais importantes e propor soluções de melhoria nas condições de trabalho no setor de cortes de um frigorífico de aves, focando principalmente a redução dos Distúrbios Osteomusculares Relacionados ao Trabalho. O diagnóstico das atividades desenvolvidas na unidade teve como base a observação direta e os Itens de Demanda Ergonômica (IDE’s) identificados por uma amostra de trabalhadores. Os principais itens apontados envolvem aspectos do posto de trabalho como o acesso a botas térmicas, organização do rodízio de cadeiras, afiação de facas, quantidades de cadeiras, distância para chegar ao refeitório, além de se ter que caminhar por um caminho sem cobertura contra intempéries. Em seguida, são citados problemas ambientais tais como: o frio no local de trabalho (que é climatizado com temperatura entre 10 e 12°C, atendendo à legislação do Ministério da Agricultura) e o ruído elevado (até 92 dB(A)), originado pelos exaustores e ventiladores do sistema de refrigeração que foi destacado como causa de dores de cabeça. As questões relativas à organização do trabalho dizem respeito ao ritmo de produção da nórea transportadora, principalmente no final da jornada, quando os trabalhadores estão mais cansados, e ao acúmulo de produtos na esteira. Também foi salientada a pressão para maior produção por parte das chefias, falta de preparo das chefias, falta de organização do rodízio de funções e a cobrança de produção excessiva para os novatos que necessitam de um melhor treinamento. A dor nos braços, pernas e coluna, que pode estar associada ao trabalho repetitivo em posição estática, é o registro que mais aparece nos relatórios médicos, e foram apontadas no diagrama de desconforto/dor adaptado de Corlett e Bishop (1976). / Based on a macroergonomic analysis, this study identifyed the most significant problems of the work carried out in a cutting sector of a poultry slaughterhouse and proposed solutions for reducing Work Related Osteomuscular Disorders. Ergonomic diagnosis was based on direct observation as well as on the identification of the Ergonomic Demand Items by a sample of workers. The main items highlighted involve aspects regarding the workstation, such as the access to thermal boots, access to chair (for alternating standing and sitting postures during work), quality of knife sharpening, distance to reach the cafeteria, and also the need to walk on an uncovered path (therefore being exposed to bad weather). Environmental problems were also pointed out, such as the cold in the working site (where the temperature varies between 10 to 12ºC, in compliance with Agriculture Department legislation), and the loud noise (reaching 92 dB(A)), originated from exhausters and fans of the cooling system which is considered the cause of headache. Work organization problems are mainly related to the conveyor belt’s production speed (especially at the end of the shift, when workers are more tired), and to the accumulation of poultry on the belt. It was also mentioned the pressure for an increase in production (this is especially true in the case of new workers who require a better training), and the lack of managers ability for dealing with people and organizing the chair rotation scheme for work posture alternation. Sore arms, legs and spine, possibly associated to repetitive work in static position, are the most common complaints in medical records, and were shown on Corlet and Bishop’s adapted diagram of discomfort/pain (1976).

Centrada em uma análise macroergonômica, esta pesquisa teve como objetivo identificar os problemas mais importantes e propor soluções de melhoria nas condições de trabalho no setor de cortes de um frigorífico de aves, focando principalmente a redução dos Distúrbios Osteomusculares Relacionados ao Trabalho. O diagnóstico das atividades desenvolvidas na unidade teve como base a observação direta e os Itens de Demanda Ergonômica (IDE’s) identificados por uma amostra de trabalhadores. Os principais itens apontados envolvem aspectos do posto de trabalho como o acesso a botas térmicas, organização do rodízio de cadeiras, afiação de facas, quantidades de cadeiras, distância para chegar ao refeitório, além de se ter que caminhar por um caminho sem cobertura contra intempéries. Em seguida, são citados problemas ambientais tais como: o frio no local de trabalho (que é climatizado com temperatura entre 10 e 12°C, atendendo à legislação do Ministério da Agricultura) e o ruído elevado (até 92 dB(A)), originado pelos exaustores e ventiladores do sistema de refrigeração que foi destacado como causa de dores de cabeça. As questões relativas à organização do trabalho dizem respeito ao ritmo de produção da nórea transportadora, principalmente no final da jornada, quando os trabalhadores estão mais cansados, e ao acúmulo de produtos na esteira. Também foi salientada a pressão para maior produção por parte das chefias, falta de preparo das chefias, falta de organização do rodízio de funções e a cobrança de produção excessiva para os novatos que necessitam de um melhor treinamento. A dor nos braços, pernas e coluna, que pode estar associada ao trabalho repetitivo em posição estática, é o registro que mais aparece nos relatórios médicos, e foram apontadas no diagrama de desconforto/dor adaptado de Corlett e Bishop (1976). / Based on a macroergonomic analysis, this study identifyed the most significant problems of the work carried out in a cutting sector of a poultry slaughterhouse and proposed solutions for reducing Work Related Osteomuscular Disorders. Ergonomic diagnosis was based on direct observation as well as on the identification of the Ergonomic Demand Items by a sample of workers. The main items highlighted involve aspects regarding the workstation, such as the access to thermal boots, access to chair (for alternating standing and sitting postures during work), quality of knife sharpening, distance to reach the cafeteria, and also the need to walk on an uncovered path (therefore being exposed to bad weather). Environmental problems were also pointed out, such as the cold in the working site (where the temperature varies between 10 to 12ºC, in compliance with Agriculture Department legislation), and the loud noise (reaching 92 dB(A)), originated from exhausters and fans of the cooling system which is considered the cause of headache. Work organization problems are mainly related to the conveyor belt’s production speed (especially at the end of the shift, when workers are more tired), and to the accumulation of poultry on the belt. It was also mentioned the pressure for an increase in production (this is especially true in the case of new workers who require a better training), and the lack of managers ability for dealing with people and organizing the chair rotation scheme for work posture alternation. Sore arms, legs and spine, possibly associated to repetitive work in static position, are the most common complaints in medical records, and were shown on Corlet and Bishop’s adapted diagram of discomfort/pain (1976).