Applied ergonomics
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Safety climate, a measure of the degree to which safety is perceived by employees to be a priority in their company, is often implicated as a key factor in the promotion of injury-reducing behavior and safe work environments. Using social exchange theory as a theoretical basis, this study hypothesized that safety climate would be related to employees' job satisfaction, engagement, and turnover rate, highlighting the beneficial effects of safety climate beyond typical safety outcomes. Survey data were collected from 6207 truck drivers from two U. ⋯ Results showed that employees' safety climate perceptions were linked to employees' level of job satisfaction, engagement, and objective turnover rate, thus supporting the application of social exchange theory. Job satisfaction was also a significant mediator between safety climate and the two human resource outcomes (i.e., employee engagement and turnover rate). This study is among the first to assess the impact of safety climate beyond safety outcomes among lone workers (using truck drivers as an exemplar).
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This study presents an integrated approach for analyzing the impact of macro-ergonomics factors in healthcare supply chain (HCSC) by data envelopment analysis (DEA). The case of this study is the supply chain (SC) of a real hospital. Thus, healthcare standards and macro-ergonomics factors are considered to be modeled by the mathematical programming approach. ⋯ In this study by using proposed method, the most effective macro-ergonomics factor on HCSC is identified as "teamwork" issue. Also, this study would help managers to identify the areas of weaknesses in their SCM system and set improvement target plan for the related SCM system in healthcare industry. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study for macro-ergonomics optimization of HCSC.
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Carrying a casualty on a stretcher is a critical task within military and emergency service occupations. This study evaluated the impact of manipulating carry speed and the object type in bilateral carries on the ability to predict performance and reflect the physical and physiological requirements of a unilateral stretcher carry. We demonstrated that three task-related predictive tests; a jerry can carry performed at 4.5 km h(-1)or 5.0 km h(-1) and a kettle-bell carry performed at 5.0 km h(-1) were strongly predictive of the physical and physiological demands of an individual participating as part of a four-person stretcher carry team. Therefore, bilateral predictive assessments have the utility for predicting the suitability of employees to effectively and safely conduct a four-person unilateral stretcher carry.