A Druid looks at quality control for product and service industries, amplifying from his earlier book Right first time . Some highlights: Quality is a religion, with the same trappings and pitfalls as other religions; humanity can be distorted, but not abolished, by managerial decree and organizatio

Researching Patient Safety and Quality in Health Care: A Nordic Perspective is an anthology based on contributions from leading researchers on quality and safety in healthcare in the Nordic countries together with four internationally renowned patient safety authors. Research on patient safety and quality has been dominated by countries such as the USA, England, Canada, and Australia. This book addresses the current debates in research on patient safety and quality in healthcare from a Nordic perspective. What are the flavours of Nordic research within these topics? What does it add to the international research literature? This book illustrates the unique nature of researching patient safety and quality with the Nordic perspective as well as showcasing representative work. The book presents an overview of the status and evidence of international and Nordic research on quality and safety in healthcare. Four different perspectives are used to present the trends within the research field: a patient perspective, a methodological perspective, a theoretical perspective, and a clinical perspective. The book then presents the status of Nordic research in the field and displays a set of illustrative work and current research topics within the Nordic context, concluding with a discussion of the characteristic features of Nordic research on patient safety and quality in healthcare. The anthology presents an inter-professional perspective and researchers from disciplines such as medical and nursing sciences, humanities, social sciences and engineering. It is written to contribute to the patient safety cause with translational knowledge that will be useful to researchers, policy makers and healthcare managers within Nordic countries and internationally.

The potential of software applications to solve an array of office and administrative problems is increasing faster than the ability of users to exploit it. We need to make systems easier to learn and more comfortable to use. This book reports a major advance in the effort to accomplish both goals. Flexcel enables users to modify access and dialog dynamics to their specific requirements. Relying on a plan recognition feature, the system proposes adaptations or uses of adaptations. The ongoing conflict between the adaptive and the adaptable is resolved in an integration: user and system share the responsibility for the initiatives, decision-making and execution. A "critic" component of the system then analyzes the user's handling of the adaptation tools and suggests improvements. The system offers an environment in which users can explore as they learn. HyPlan implements the context-sensitive help that facilitates learning on demand. When the PLANET plan-recognition feature identifies the kinds of support for work that may possibly be required, HyPlan provides, on request, specific assistance in the form of hypermedia or animated displays and tutorials. Developmental research has shown that users take advantage of opportunities to adapt interfaces only in conjunction with help-functions -- which are accepted when they do not interrupt work. And studies by social scientists have shown that adaptations of technical systems have to be integrated into the overall process of organizational innovation and undertaken cooperatively. This book will stimulate all those concerned with software -- from computational, cognitive, ergonomic, or organizational standpoints -- to reconceive the relationship between design and user support.

This book summarizes the activities of the Generic Intelligent Driver Support (GIDS) Consortium and offers recommendations for successful GIDS implementation. It is based on the GIDS Project, a part of the EC-funded Dedicated Road Infrastructure for Vehicle Safety in Europe Programme.

Moving from theory into practical reality, ergonomics has come of age as a useful tool for generating safe, comfortable, and productive working environments. Tackling both the simple and complex aspects of a variety of workplaces, Office Ergonomics: Practical Applications demonstrates how to create offices that accommodate all workers. The book contains practical advice on how to maintain an office environment that promotes a healthy, safe, and efficient workforce. Covering workstation design, selection, layout, and use, the book details the impact of computers on worker well-being, particularly when used under unfavorable conditions, and discusses how ergonomics can accommodate disabled workers. The author emphasizes the need to offer 'protection' to people involved in manual handling in offices, an issue that is frequently overlooked, and offers advice on how to work satisfactorily in non-office environments. She explores the possible negative outcomes, such as back pain, headaches, and upper limb disorders, of a poorly designed workstation. Walking you through all the features of an office, the book provides insight into the potential problem areas that workers often encounter. The book explains how to identify suitable workstation furniture, test it, trial it, and introduce the final selection so the workforce accepts it. The author draws on first-hand experience dealing with difficulties in many types of office situations to provide straightforward, easily applicable advice on how to improve the workplace to reduce the likelihood of workers experiencing discomfort, ill-health, and dissatisfaction.

Management of hazardous chemicals and materials-particularly during emergency release situations-is a critical part of routine training required for workers and professionals in the chemical, petroleum and manufacturing industries. Proper storage of highly reactive chemical agents, correct choice of protective clothing and safety issues in confined spaces are vital to operating facilities. Inattention to these and other issues covered in this book can result in a loss of life, dispersal of toxic chemical agents into the environment, or fire and explosion and subsequent legal liabilities.Emergency Response and Hazardous Chemical Management: Principles and Practices provides a concise reference for management and workers on the important issues regarding the use and management of hazardous chemicals as well as the critical issues in the emergency response management of uncontrolled releases of hazardous agents. This book combines practical information on hazardous chemical response and environmental management with scientific and management issues important in the development of sound chemical management planning. Important current topics such as hazardous chemical management in confined spaces are also covered in detail.

As computers proliferate and as the field of computer graphics matures, it has become increasingly important for computer scientists to understand how users perceive and interpret computer graphics. Experimental Design: From User Studies to Psychophysics is an accessible introduction to psychological experiments and experimental design, covering the major components in the design, execution, and analysis of perceptual studies. The book begins with an introduction to the concepts central to designing and understanding experiments, including developing a research question, setting conditions and controls, and balancing specificity with generality. The book then explores in detail a number of types of experimental tasks: free description, rating scales, forced-choice, specialized multiple choice, and real-world tasks as well as physiological studies. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each type and provides examples of that type of experiment from the authors' own work. The book also covers stimulus-related issues, including popular stimulus resources. It concludes with a thorough examination of statistical techniques for analyzing results, including methods specific to individual tasks.

"Empirical Methods in Language Studies" presents 22 papers employing a broad range of empirical methods in the analysis of various aspects of language and communication. The individual texts offer contributions to the description of conceptual strategies, syntax, semantics, non-verbal communication, language learning, discourse, and literature.

This is a short guide on sit-stand working in the office. It reviews the research on sitting and standing at work from the 1950s to present and provides guidance for specialists, therapists, practitioners, and managers. The book is illustrated with many photos and figures, provides guidance for active working at the end of every chapter, and is understandable to the layman as well as the specialist. With the increased emphasis on healthy lifestyles, coupled with the obesity and overweight epidemic, many are claiming that we should spend more time standing at work. Some have even claimed that sitting is the new smoking. Readers of the book will learn and understand what is behind these claims, what stacks-up, what doesn't, and be able to make informed decisions about whether to invest in new facilities, and what to invest. This book is of value to human factors specialists, physical therapists, chiropractors and occupational health practitioners, architects, and facilities managers. Features Explains the origins of sedentary office work Summarizes the health risks of sitting and standing and how to avoid them Reviews new research on active working and practical ways of developing active working habits in the office Discusses the obesogenic workplace, and how to avoid it Includes over 60 key points to help you decide how to be more active at work

A Practical Guide to the Safety Profession: The Relentless Pursuit will help reshape the way we talk about safety, prompt action, and engage workers from all levels of an organization. The book includes real-life experiences and characters that are relatable to anyone who has worked in the safety and health field for any amount of time. It will provide answers for every safety professional who has ever asked: "Is this actually making people safer?" It shines a light on ineffective practices that drive a wedge between the safety professional and the people they support and then provides meaningful alternative practices. Features Provides a streamlined process for eliminating high impact hazards Emphasizes concepts that are immediately actionable with little to no investment costs Includes real-life studies and examples

Even when products and systems are highly localized, rarely is there one design suitable for a single, mono-cultural population of users. The products and systems created and used are cultural artifacts representing shared cognitions that characterize mental models that result from interactions with physical environments. Thus, culture is embedded and impacts the extent to which products are usable, accessible, useful, and safe. Products and systems that deviate from users' mental models may have negative consequences for users, ranging from minor annoyance to more serious consequences such as severe injury or death. Both an introduction and a primer, Cultural Ergonomics: Theory, Methods, and Applications demonstrates how cultural ergonomics can be applied in research and practitioner contexts. It covers selection of theories, descriptions of research designs, methods to analyze the results, case studies, and strategies used to draw inferences and conclusions in a vast array of areas including occupational safety, global issues, emergency management, human-computer interaction, warnings and risk communications, and product design. Human factors/ergonomics, as a discipline, is slowly integrating cultural ergonomics into efforts to explore human capabilities and limitations in the context of design and evaluation. Edited by experts and containing contributions from pioneers in this area, this book provides examples and methodologies within a human factors framework. It provides systematic methods to apply what is learned from analysis of culture to the design, development, and evaluation of products and systems.

By 2030, 20 percent of the world's drivers, 60 million in all, will be over the age of 65. Consequently, safe and efficient mobility for older adults is a complex and pressing issue. Maintaining Safe Mobility in an Aging Society addresses the complexities surrounding the booming number of aging drivers and practical solutions for sustaining safe transportation for this growing group. This plainspoken resource informs safe mobility discussions on a variety of areas, including: Necessary skills for safe driving and how age affects them Current evidence on how medical conditions and medication hinder driving skills Comprehensive screening description and assessment practices, issues, and tools Sensitive ways to help older drivers transition into driving cessation Impact of advanced vehicle technology on aging drivers Approaches to strengthening safety-conscious licensing policies Draws the Significant Link Between Mobility and Well Being In addition to discussing how age impacts both the risk and severity of accidents and the link between mobility and well-being, this authoritative work discusses means to achieve safer mobility, including roadway design and community transportation options. Authored by driver safety and awareness experts, it covers psychological and physical changes associated with age (both normal and pathological), including an important but rarely explored aspect of dementia known as wandering behavior. It also addresses the role of emerging technology. Maintaining Safe Mobility in an Aging Society is a concise reference that encompasses an impressive breadth of ready-to-access information. Thorough and systematically organized, it is a groundbreaking and indispensable resource for those prov

This volume presents world-leading ideas and research that explores some of the most prominent topics relevant to detecting terrorism. The book is divided into six key themes: conceptualising terrorism, deception and decision making, social and cultural factors in terrorism, modelling hostile intent, strategies for counter-terrorism, and future directions. Twenty two chapters cover the spectrum of detecting terrorist activities, hostile intent, crowded public spaces and suspicious behaviour. The work draws from high impact research findings and presents case-studies to help communicate concepts. Specific areas of interest include methodological issues in counter-terrorism, counter terrorism policy and its impact on end users, novel research methods and innovative technologies in counter-terrorism. A variety of disciplines are represented by this work, including: ergonomics/human factors, psychology, criminology, cognitive science, sociology, political theory, art/design, engineering and computer science. This book not only expands the knowledge base of the subject area and is therefore of prime relevance to researchers investigating counter-terrorism, but provides a valuable resource to security stakeholders at policy and practitioner levels.

Preparation and Restoration is the second volume of Resilience Engineering Perspectives within the Ashgate Studies in Resilience Engineering series. In four sections, it broadens participation of the field to include policy and organization studies, and articulates aspects of resilience beyond initial definitions: - Policy and Organization explores public policy and organizational aspects of resilience and how they aid or inhibit preparation and restoration - Models and Measures addresses thoughts on ways to measure resilience and model systems to detect desirable, and undesirable, results - Elements and Traits examines features of systems and how they affect the ability to prepare for and recover from significant challenges - Applications and Implications examines how resilience plays out in the living laboratory of real-world operations. Preparation and Restoration addresses issues such as the nature of resilience; the similarities and differences between resilience and traditional ideas of system performance; how systems cope with varying demands and sometimes succeed and sometimes fail; how an organization's ways of preparing before critical events can enable or impede restoration; the trade-offs that are needed for systems to operate and survive; instances of brittle or resilient systems; how work practices affect resilience; the relationship between resilience and safety; and what improves or erodes resilience. This volume is valuable reading for those who create and operate systems that must not only survive, but thrive, in the face of challenge.

This book focuses exclusively on ergonomics in the design and use of hand tools. Hand tools have been an integral supplement to the human hand since the beginning of civilization. Recently, they have been pinpointed as a prominent cause of workplace disease. Cumulative Trauma Disorders such as Tendonitus, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and Raynaud's Syndrome are caused by the specialization of motion employed when using a screw driver, the shock to the hand and wrist when a hammer strikes a nail, or the vibration of a power saw. Ergonomics and Safety in Hand Tool Design explores the relationship between Biomechanics, Safety, and Ergonomics allowing the reader to recognize, evaluate, and control ergonomic risk factors and improve hand tool design. After a history of hand tool use and design, the book is broken down by the various disciplines as they apply to hand tools, taking a broad approach. The author gives special attention to safe design and use, illustrated with detailed diagrams. The text serves as a guide to the human factors in safety and ergonomics for safety professionals.

A comprehensive review of international and national standards and guidelines, this handbook consists of 32 chapters divided into nine sections that cover standardization efforts, anthropometry and working postures, designing manual material, human-computer interaction, occupational health and safety, legal protection, military human factor standards, and sources for human factors and ergonomics standards. The book delineates the role standards and guidelines play in facilitating the design and optimal working conditions in regards to occupational safety and health as well as system performance in the context of technological advances and opportunities for economic development worldwide.

Using a direct, down-to-earth style to provide essential knowledge about ergonomic designs that fit the human body and mind, Fitting the Human: Introduction to Ergonomics, Sixth Edition follows the motto of the previous editions: coverage of sound science that is easy to read, easy to understand, and easy to apply. This sixth edition of a seminal textbook remains true to its original goal of providing quick access to the ergonomic information required to engineer workplaces, machinery, offices, computers, lighting, and more to fit the humans who use them. New Organization Makes Teaching Complex Issues Easier With new data and an updated layout that helps students grasp the concepts, this book delineates true human engineering, as opposed to trying to select or train people to do things with ill-designed equipment. Ergonomics guru Karl Kroemer organizes detailed knowledge regarding body size, strength, and mobility, as well as motivation, perceptions, acquired skills, and work demands including shift work. This sixth edition maintains the straightforward, lucid presentation of the previous editions, while updating the material to include coverage of work climate (both physical and psychosocial), material handling, electronic keyboards, and offices (at home and at the company) - factors that continually change the demands on the human not only in equipment but in the physical and social environments. With additional figures, graphs, and tables, this text remains the first choice for teaching the fundamental and most successful ergonomics approach: make the details and overall work system fit the human.

Muscle strength is an important topic for ergonomics practitioners and physiologists to understand, especially as it relates to workplace injuries. Muscle strength and function is at the heart of many injuries that lead to reduced productivity and economic strain on the worker, the company, and society as a whole. This comprehensive source of information and data relating to muscle strength is the first to present such information in a single source. Muscle Strength explains the general determinants of muscle strength such as gender, age, and muscle type. It illustrates physical data in the context of theoretical background and examines the protocols, techniques, devices, and data used to record muscle strength in various parts of the body. This is followed by a discussion of overexertion, strength prediction, strength and endurance, torque and EMG relationship, and muscle fatigue. Finally, the material is applied to the use of muscle in jobs, to product design, and to studies of job accommodation and the effect of disability on strength. Professionals in ergonomics, biomechanics, sports science, and physiology will find that this unique text provides insight and data on an important subject in their field.

Most books on standardization describe the impact of ISO and related organizations on many industries. While this is great for managing an organization, it leaves engineers asking questions such as "what are the effects of standards on my designs?" and "how can I use standardization to benefit my work?" Standards for Engineering Design and Manufacturing provides hands-on knowledge for incorporating standards into the entire process from design bench to factory floor. The book's five self-contained sections consider the scope of design and manufacturing, standards for the design of discrete products, standards for the manufacture of discrete products, standards for the use of discrete products, as well as support standards. The authors survey in detail the major standards-setting organizations and outline the procedure for developing standards. They consider standards from the perspective of product, equipment, and end-user, using this as a platform to explain the economic benefits of standardization. Case studies in every section illustrate the concepts and offer practical insight for using standards in CAD/CAM, selection of components, process planning, human/machine interaction, and computer interfacing. With its modular approach and practical wisdom based on the authors' years of broad experience, Standards for Engineering Design and Manufacturing supplies the tools to incorporate standards into every stage of design and manufacturing. For a summary of chapters, as well as illustrations and tools from the book, visit

Human error is involved in more than 90 percent of traffic accidents, and of those accidents, most are associated with visual distractions, or looking-but-failing-to-see errors. Human Factors of Visual and Cognitive Performance in Driving gathers knowledge from a human factors psychology standpoint and provides deeper insight into traffic -user behavior and the ways drivers acquire information from the road. Emphasizes Drivers as Visual Information Processors Because driving is an eyes-wide-open task, drivers are exposed to a multitude of visual stimuli along their journey. This information must be correctly processed in order to make the right decisions and perform precise safety maneuvers. With contributions from more than 20 leading experts, this detailed resource discusses road and markings design, new technologies, signage, distraction, safety, situation awareness, workload, driving experience, fatigue, and driving interventions with the goal of improving driving behavior and preventing accidents. Addresses These Key Areas: Visual attention and in-vehicle technologies Interventions to reduce road trauma Avoiding collisions and the failures involved in that endeavor Using jargon-free language that is easily understood, this book compresses research from the past few decades into one accessible resource. It clearly and cohesively provides ergonomics and human factor engineers, industrial designers, and highway and roadway engineers with an overarching understanding of the incessant visual demands drivers face.

A practical guide to industrial safety. It seeks to assist specialists in managing operations in industrial settings, including high-risk personal exposure such as inhalation hazards and direct chemical contact. It covers hazards in the chemical process industries, inhalation hazards in refineries, indoor air quality management, personal protective equipment, process safety emergency preparedness, safety in the laboratory, and more. There are Web site listings, NFPA hazard ratings, and other sources of information.

In an approach that combines coverage of safety and human error into a single volume, Safety and Human Error in Engineering Systems eliminates the need to consult many different and diverse sources for those who need information about both topics. The book begins with an introduction to aspects of safety and human error and a discussion of mathematical concepts that builds understanding of the material presented in subsequent chapters. The author describes the methods that can be used to perform safety and human error analysis in engineering systems and includes examples, along with their solutions, as well as problems to test reader comprehension. He presents a total of ten methods considered useful for performing safety and human error analysis in engineering systems. The book also covers safety and human error transportation systems, medical systems, and mining equipment as well as robots and software. Nowadays, engineering systems are an important element of the world economy as each year billions of dollars are spent to develop, manufacture, and operate various types of engineering systems around the globe. A rise in accidental deaths has put the spotlight on the role human error plays in the safety and failure of these systems. Written by an expert in various aspects of healthcare, engineering management, design, reliability, safety, and quality, this book provides tools and techniques for improving engineering systems with respect to human error and safety.

Are you ready and willing to get to the root causes of problems? As Medicare, Medicaid, and major insurance companies increasingly deny payment for never events, it has become imperative that hospitals and doctors develop new ways to prevent these avoidable catastrophes from recurring. Proactive tools such as root cause analysis (RCA), basic failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), and opportunity analysis (OA) are useful in preventing error, but in healthcare, such tools are often constrained by reticence to share information about mistakes and other problems inherent to the industry. ...well written and extremely applicable to health care. Every healthcare professional should have a copy. - Matthew C. Mireles, President / CEO, Community Medical Foundation for Patient Safety, Bellaire, Texas Patient Safety: The PROACT (R) Root Cause Analysis Approach addresses the proactive methodologies and organizational paradigms that must change in order to support and sustain such activities in the interest of patient safety. Written by reliability expert Robert J. Latino, this book provides a perspective on patient care from outside the health industry and culture. It teaches a proven approach that measures its effectiveness based on patient safety results, rather than compliance, and demonstrates the Return-On-Investment for using RCA to reduce and/or eliminate undesirable outcomes. Addressing the contribution of human error to physical consequences, Latino explores ways to identify conditions that are more prone to result in human error. It also uses FMEA to proactively identify unacceptable risks, and then uses the concepts of RCA to prevent risks from materializing. Are you ready to be tenacious in your approach and completely honest in your assessment?Root Cause Analysis requires courage and honesty. When

Most Fortune 1000 companies still struggle with workspace planning and design issues. They invest millions of dollars each year with the expectation that new buildings and major renovations will help transform their culture, support innovation, strengthen desired behaviors and increase organizational effectiveness. And let's not forget reducing costs. But there is rarely any actual measurement of the success of a new workplace against specific business or design goals (apart from cost savings). Even less often is there any ongoing measurement program to assess and improve the quality of the workplace. Measuring Workplace Performance, Second Edition explores a fundamentally new way of thinking about how organizations behave and change and what this means for planning and measuring the success of the facilities that house them. This is not a planning guide or a step by step design "cookbook." Rather, author Michael O'Neill presents a thought-provoking "biological" model for thinking about organizations and workplaces, describes the tools to gather information and analyze success, and presents plenty of scientific case studies with "hard" performance and financial metrics. O'Neill addresses issues such as: What are the effects of adding flexibility into facility and workplace design, in terms of improving employee and organizational performance? How do we measure the performance of facilities in terms of supporting desired behaviors (like communication, collaboration), efficient business processes and other concrete performance/financial improvements? Using real-world case studies across a variety of industries, O'Neill shows the types of performance measures that leading-edge companies use as well as the improvements they attain by incorporating flexibility and control into their workspaces. He uses the data from these studies to create models showing credible links between specific design features, and behavioral and business process outco

Small and big persons, disabled and elderly, expectant mothers and children. Everyone will fall into one of these categories at least once in their lifetime. In fact, demographics show that at least two of every five people vary from the norm in height, width, and weight at any given time. Yet customarily, designers design for adults of regular size with standard abilities. Written by an expert in human factors and ergonomics, Extraordinary Ergonomics explores designing for population groups that do not meet the customary standards in age, size, and abilities. Underscoring the need for extraordinary ergonomics, the book illustrates various approaches to measuring the characteristics, capabilities, and limitations of those who differ from the norm. It provides the how-tos of designing for people who are smaller, weaker, or bigger, discusses specifically the design for persons with disabilities and the aging population, and covers human factors engineering for expectant mothers and ergonomics for children and teenagers. The author explains how to assess and determine abilities and needs and demonstrates how to design tools, homes, and environments to make working space safe and living space easy.