Abstract:

In the paper defined is the concept of ergonomic engineering as a type of prospective engineering measures, which change the world of technical objects (artifacts) in the direction of increased ergonomic quality, safety for humans, and care for the environment. To effectively achieve this goal, it is necessary to make changes in thinking about the proposed system and the structure of the design process. The „check lists” used by designers serve to check the level of ergonomic quality, mainly of well-known design solutions and, to some extent, enable the improvement of this level through the correction of the faults observed in these designs. This approach is of little effectiveness. Radical improvement of the ergonomic level of products in this way is not possible. Modification of the aim should be obtained, implies the necessity for adequate modification of the method of obtaining it.

Important elements of the new structure of the design process of anthropo-technical systems are decision criteria, in terms of content belonging to the area of ergonomics. The paper presents the formulation of the principles of ergonomic decision criteria, tailored to the specific steps of design procedure and expressed in the engineering language.

Designing of anthropo-technical mega-systems encounters major methodological difficulties due to the multi-interdisciplinary nature of problems to be solved, incompleteness and uncertainty of knowledge of a prospective nature, and the risk of the appearance of unforeseen, adverse effects of engineering measures, which may become apparent in the long term. The paper presents a concept of the structure of decision criteria that are relevant in the design process of elementary human-machine system and mega-systems of an industrial nature.