Allowing for the human element: Human factors in small manufacturing enterprises

Abstract

Manufacturing industry is increasingly realizing that promoting greater involvement of workforces in the development and running of companies is a key to successful enterprises. A large human factors collaborative project between academia, government, and small manufacturing enterprises is discussed in this article. Two particular major strands of the work are taken up in more detail. The first involves the development of a framework within which human factors issues can be explained, examined, and promoted. The second strand embraces many of the pertinent human factors issues such as goal and target setting, performance measurement, reporting and reward systems, which are being examined as part of a detailed study of goal congruence.