Ergonomics capability in product design and development: an organizational analysis

Applied Ergonomics 199425(5) 266-274

Ergonomics capa fity in pr design and devet ment: an organizational analysis

uct

Carol Slappendel Department of Management Systems, Massey University, Private Bag 11222, Palmerston North, New Zealand

This paper suggests that the emergence and development of ergonomics capability in product design and development can be understood as a dynamic process of innovation, which is shaped by a combination of forces both internal and external to an organization. The comparative case study method was used to focus on six organizations (three pairs) operating from a manufacturing base in New Zealand. Data were collected from in-depth interviews, documents, archival sources and through observation. A framework for understanding the emergence and development of ergonomics capability in product design and development is presented. While ergonomics capability is a core concept in the model, four other major elements are identified. These are staffing routines, top management orientation, organizational configuration, and the external environment. Keywords: productdesign, management,organization,industrial design, ergonomics Ergonomists have occasionally questioned why knowledge from their discipline has not been more widely applied in organizations. Attempts to explain this apparent 'utilization problem' have focused on factors at both the individual level and the organizational level. A focus on individual factors is reflected in the experimental studies reported by Meister and Farr (1967) and Meister (1971). In this behavioural research, variables such as the knowledge and skills of design engineers, their attitudes to human factors engineering, and their approach to the design process are used to explain the use (or non-use) of ergonomics knowledge. Several researchers have considered organization-level factors such as communication flow and organization structure (Kvaiseth, 1980; Shackel, 1980, Kling, 1981; Meister, 1982; Perrow, 1983; Liker et al, 1984; Evans and Chaffin, 1986; Rouse and Boff, 1987). Within this literature on organizational factors, the analyses by Liker et al (1984) and Perrow (1983) stand out as being more systematically informed by theoretical frameworks and perspectives from the organization studies field. Perrow (1983), in particular, draws on his work as an organizational analyst and his classic work on organizational goals (Perrow, 1970). On this basis, Perrow argues that the neglect of human factors engineering can be explained in terms of the 'social structure' in which design engineers and ergonomists operate. He then goes on to suggest that relevant aspects of the social structure include 'top management goals and perspectives, the reward structure of the organization, insulation of design engineers from the

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consequences of their decision, and some aspects of organizational culture'. Liker et al (1984), in turn, acknowledge Perrow's influence on their own work but also draw on the change management literature. They then proceed to identify barriers to the use of ergonomics knowledge including poor inter-departmental communication, organizational politics, and unfavourable perceptions of costs versus benefits. This paper reports on a study (Slappendel, 1992) that aimed to provide ergonomics practitioners with further insight into the knowledge-utilization problem by focusing specifically on the experience of New Zealand organizations. The study assumed an organizational focus similar to that adopted by Perrow (1983) and Liker et al (1984) but extended this with a broader contextual concern for extra-organizational factors. At the same time, by constructing retrospective case histories, the study attempted to locate the various contextual forces within a time frame that extended backwards through up to four decades.

Conceptual background Although the study was guided by a range of concepts from the general field of organization studies, the research literature dealing with innovation in organizations provided the immediate frame of reference. A concept of central importance was 'innovation' itself, and this was given a meaning similar to the definition used by Zaltman et al (1973):

0003-6870/94/05 0266--11t~) 1994 Butterworth-HeinemannLtd

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Ergonomics capability in product design and development: C. Slappendel

an innovation [is] any idea, practice, or material artifact perceived to be new by the relevant unit of adoption. • . .

This definition is significant for two reasons. First, it gives weight to the adopter's perception of 'newness'. Second, it suggests that an innovation can take on a variety of forms, in contrast to common usage, which tends to equate an innovation with a physical object such as a machine. The above definition suggests that an innovation may also be a programme service, or even a collection of ideas. Indeed, as Zaltman (1979) has argued, 'knowledge itself is an innovation'. If this line of reasoning is accepted, it could be argued that when ergonomics is perceived to be ' n e w ' by a relevant adoption unit such as a design team, it may be regarded as a 'knowledge innovation'. This position would allow us to bring the voluminous innovation literature to bear on our understanding of the use of ergonomics knowledge in organizational settings. This literature has looked at two types of question (Schroeder et al, 1986). First, it has sought to identify the determinants (also referred to as facilitators/ inhibitors) of innovation in a given setting. Second, a smaller body of research has focused on the process by which innovations are adopted and implemented. Given that the study of innovation determinants has been plagued by problems of validity, operationalization and instability (Downs and Mohr, 1986), research with a focus on the innovation process has gained increasing support (Van de Ven and Rogers, 1988). This shift from determinants research toward process research has major implications for methodology. Whereas research on the determinants of innovation has tended to be conducted by investigating the variables associated with large numbers of innovations using cross-sectional surveys, innovation processes can best be explored and analysed through longitudinal case studies, which track events in real time and/or retrospectively (Van de Ven and Rogers, 1988). The shift to process research has provided new insights into the innovation process, including the understanding that some innovations may change as they are being adopted and implemented (Clark and Staunton, 1989), and a recognition that knowledge creation and use are not necessarily separate and sequential processes (Demartini and Whitbeck, 1986). The latter consideration helps to explain why the term 'ergonomics capability' came to be used in the present study in preference to 'ergonomics knowledge'. Particularly where the latter term is used in combination with the concept of 'knowledge utilization', this tends to imply that knowledge is produced outside a recipient organization and 'consumed' within. By contrast, the term 'ergonomics capability' is employed not only to refer to such knowledge consumption but also to the process of knowledge creation and learning that may occur in an organization. For the purposes of the study reported here, ergonomics capability was defined as a condition or state of an organization which is represented at any given point in time by: (1) the extent to which the actions and thoughts of, organization members are informed by ergonomics perspectives, principles and data;

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(2) the extent to which organization members are familiar with ergonomics methodology; and (3) the collective experience of organization members in the practical application of ergonomics knowledge. Methods The theoretical and methodological considerations highlighted in the previous section provided a background against which research questions were formulated. These included: what changes in ergonomics capability take place in organizations? How does ergonomics capability emerge and develop within an organization? What are the contextual factors facilitating and impeding the emergence and development of ergonomics capability? Given the focus of the study on processes and c~ontexts, the comparative case study method is an appropriate research strategy (Yin, 1989). Various decision criteria guided the case study design and the selection of cases. In particular, it was decided to focus the study primarily, but not exclusively, on ergonomics in relation to product design and development. The organizations had to operate from a manufacturing base in New Zealand. In all, three pairs of organizations were selected, with each pair operating in one of the following product markets: petrol pumps, cookers, and office seating. Each pair consisted of a recognized ergonomic design 'leader' and a competitor with a lesser reputation in this respect. The case study design allowed for comparisons to be drawn between leaders and non-leaders operating in the same product market. This use of organization pairs helps to overcome a major limitation associated with the 'excellence-inbusiness' literature, which tends to have a one-sided focus on the most successful firms. During repeat visits to the research sites between 1989 and 1991, data were collected from multiple sources, including semi-structured interviews with design team members and managers, direct observation of workplaces and buildings, and documents including minutes of meetings, in-house newsletters, and design briefs. Additional interviews were also conducted with design educators, officers of professional associations, and industry representatives. The published literature was scanned for relevant information about the companies and their product markets, and extensive use was made of public archives. The data were subsequently integrated into lengthy chronological case records (Patton, 1990), which focused on key events surrounding the emergence and development of ergonomics capability in each organization• Techniques for the analysis of qualitative data such as flowcharts and matrices (Mills and Huberman, 1984) also enabled the identification of patterns and themes• Ergonomics,

industrial

designers

and the research

cases In none of the six cases was the emergence of ergonomics capability in product development directly attributable to the actions of a professional ergonomist (or human factors engineer). Instead, in at least four of the six organizations, the initial emergence of ergo-

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nomics capability coincided with the first use of an industrial designer. The subsequent development of this capability was closely related to the propensity for each organization to continue to employ industrial designers on successive projects. Given the close link between ergonomics capability and staffing routines involving industrial designers, the brief profiles that follow tend to highlight events surrounding the employment of these professionals.

Pump Suppliers This family-owned business has a proud reputation as a world-class supplier of high-tech equipment including petrol pumps, access control equipment, and point of sale systems. Of the 95 personnel employed in 1990 by Pump Suppliers, 23 were directly involved in product development work. Sixty percent of sales were generated by exports. The company was established in 1939 in the same rural town where it is based today. The company initially made smoke bombs for the war effort, then ploughs, and during the 1950s it started to manufacture petrol pumps under licence Ito a U K finn. In 1965, the founder of the company handed the reins over to his son, who had recently joined the staff following the completion of a degree in chemical engineering. Under this new leadership, the company increased its commitment to in-house development, adopted a policy of integrating solid-state electronics into its products wherever possible, and expanded its small engineering staff to include electronics experts. During this development phase, officers of the New Zealand Industrial Design Council (NZIDC) contacted the company. Several senior managers of Pump Suppliers subsequently attended a seminar organized by the Council in December 1969 and, as a direct result of this, a decision was made to employ, for the first time, a consultant industrial designer. This industrial designer argued strongly for an ergonomics approach and showed the company's engineers how the users' interactions with the product could be studied by employing techniques such as observation, photography and mockups. Since then, the company has continued to employ industrial design consultants, because their contribution is considered to be critical to the company's success in export markets. Between 1970 and 1990, Pump Suppliers worked with three industrial design consultants for periods of 10, 5 and 6 years respectively.

companies, and there was a feeling that these had not been that good anyway. Moreover, the managers wished to convey a new image of competence and local control by involving their customers in the design process and producing pump designs that were noticeably different. The design initiative was headed by an owner-manager who, on the basis of his engineering background and extensive industry experience, had some ideas about making petrol pumps more costeffective to produce and easier to service. This ownermanager recognized that some assistance would be needed in designing the pump exterior and, with the help of the NZIDC, he employed an industrial designer to work as a consultant to Petrolco's small design team. In 1991, this designer was still working for the company, which had grown to employ around 160 people.

Whitegoods This company was established in 1871 as an iron foundry which, amongst other things, made coal ranges for colonial settlers. From this base, Whitegoods eventually drifted into the manufacture of electric cookers, dishwashers, and heaters. The founding family continued to have a financial interest in the company until it was sold to 1981 to the other major shareholder, a large public corporation with a growing reputation for innovation in the design and manufacture of whitegoods. Under this new ownership arrangement, Whitegoods initially operated as a subsidiary and then, in 1983, it became a Division. At this time, a new division manager was appointed to oversee major changes, including a reduction in staff numbers, a rationalization of the product range, investment in new machinery and the strengthening of marketing and product development activities. As part of this restructuring, an industrial designer was employed to work full-time and on site. This was a new practice for Whitegoods, even though the company had previously had (indirect) access to the industrial design expertise of its parent company/shareholder. In 1986, a second in-house industrial designer was employed, and since then Whitegoods has always had two industrial designers in its design and development section. This section trebled in size between 1984 and 1991 to reach 24 (out of a total staff of 330). All industrial designers employed by Whitegoods graduated from the Wellington Polytechnic.

Petrolco

Rangemakers

During the 1970s and early 1980s, Petrolco operated as a subsidiary of a multinational oil company. Although its core business involved the servicing and installation of fuel-dispensing equipment, Petroico also manufactured petrol pumps according to design specifications provided by a related Australian-based company. During the early 1980s, Petrolco's share of the New Zealand petrol pump market eroded from about 50% to virtually nil as a result of the actions of its competitor, Pump Suppliers. This crisis ended in 1984 with a management buyout. The new owner-managers quickly decided to develop their own range of petrol pumps. The company no longer had access to the designs of related overseas

In 1991, Rangemakers employed 110 staff in the development and production of electric ranges and other domestic appliances. Since 1988, it had operated as a small division of a large Australasian corporation with experience in whitegoods manufacture. This new ownership arrangement gave the company a degree of stability and commitment that had been lacking for much of the 1980s, when the company was part of the subsidiary portfolio of a large New Zealand-based investment company preoccupied with asset-stripping. Rangemakers employed its first industrial design consultant in 1975 with the brief of improving the design of cooker controls. This decision can be related to results of comparative consumer tests, published by

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the Consumers' Institute in 1973 and 1974, which concluded that Rangemakers' products trailed its competitors in the area of control markings. Once this project was completed, however, this particular consultant industrial designer was not called upon again. Although details are sketchy because the management of Rangemakers was reluctant to participate in this study, Rangemakers has continued to employ consultant industrial designers. The available information suggests that these appointments have all been of a relatively short-term nature.

Commercial Seating Highly acclaimed for its products, which are now exported to Australia and the Pacific Rim, Commercial Seating has never employed more than 95 staff at one time. Although the company's founder first heard of ergonomics in 1960 and used a British Standard (BS 3044) to inform the design of this first range of office chairs, his understanding of the subject developed further in the late 1970s when industrial design students from the local polytechnic initiated contact with the company, seeking help with their chair design projects. As a result of this contact, a graduate was employed by the company for a period of time and the company brought some of the best chair concepts designed by the polytechnic students into production. When Commercial Seating was sold in 1981, the new owner-managers reaffirmed the company's commitment to in-house development but soon recognized their own inexperience. They were aware that an industrial design student had helped the company to design its most successful seating product and so proceeded to employ one of the four consultant industrial designers recommended to the company by the NZIDC. By working closely with this designer on a computer workstation project, the owner-managers developed a more detailed understanding of office ergonomics. While this same consultant designer was still working for the company in 1991, Commercial Seating also employed full-time industrial designers for shorter periods of time. One of these designers was particularly interested in ergonomics, and his employers encouraged him to learn more about it on the job. Prior to his departure for overseas in 1987, this designer was a member of a small design team, which gained recognition when Commercial Seating was awarded the premier award in 1988 for New Zealand industrial design. Modern Furniture In 1989, after having operated as a subsidiary of a large New Zealand-based group of companies for three decades, Modern Furniture was absorbed into the structure of a giant Australian corporation. Following this change, Modern Furniture's small staff of 130 continued to produce commercial furniture for the local 'middle market', while supplementing this with more sophisticated products manufactured according to licence agreements. Modern Furniture had, historically, adopted a highvolume, low-cost position in its industry. Throughout the 1960 and 1970s low costs were achieved in part by

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sticking to the same products. Not only did this minimize the expense associated with product design and retooling, the lack of change meant that Modern Furniture could focus on achieving efficiencies by refining its manufacturing processes. In the meantime, however, the gap between the company's furniture designs, and those design concepts becoming widespread overseas, continued to increase. Modern Furniture was therefore unprepared when, in 1981, its competitor, Commercial Seating, released an 'ergonomically designed' chair into a market that wanted better seating solutions for VDU users. Modern Furniture reacted by making a brief foray into 'full development' of a new secretarial chair. Although at this time an industrial design student was involved in the development process, this practice was not repeated. Since then, the company has obtained its designs either by product modification, feature imitation, or though the acquisition of small companies and licence agreements. The company undertakes little inhouse development work and follows industry standards and published ergonomics guidelines closely. These brief profiles show that the six organizations have widely differing experiences in the use of industrial design expertise. In addition, the profiles reveal variations in ownership arrangements, with some of the organizations being part of public corporations while others are private companies. Overall, the size of the organizational entities (as indicated by staff numbers) might appear to be small. However, within New Zealand, these manufacturing organizations would be classified as medium or large in size.

Ergonomics capability: a process framework A comparative analysis of the case records revealed that the events and states that contribute to an organization's ergonomics capability can be grouped together into four themes or elements: staffing routines, top management orientation, organizational configuration, and the external environment. The elements interact in a dynamic feedback loop, as shown in Figure 1. The major interactions between these elements will be discussed below. external

org~mi~lonal

envlmnrmmt

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Figure 1 Ergonomics capability in product design and development: a process framework

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Ergonomics capability in product design and development: C. Slappendel Ergonomics capability and staffing routines The case evidence revealed a close link between the emergence of ergonomics capability in an organization's product development function and the employment of an industrial designer for the first time. For the organizations concerned, this first-time practice of employing an industrial designer represented an (innovative) addition to the staffing routines that had been used in the past. In the cases of Petrolco, Pump Suppliers and Commercial Seating, new search routines (March and Simon, 1958) were also used that in some way involved the (now-defunct) New Zealand Industrial Design Council. The initial emergence of ergonomics capability in relation to product design and development was not the result of the purposive, stepwise 'adoption' processes described in the innovation literature (Zaltman et al, 1973). Rather, ergonomics capability was introduced unintentionally through the employment of industrial designers who, as a matter of routine, would approach their work from an ergonomics perspective. This link between industrial design and ergonomics often came as something of a surprise to those design team members who found themselves working alongside an industrial designer for the first time. Given their lack of familiarity with the work practices of industrial designers, design team members had tended to assume initially that the professional role of the industrial designer was to improve the visual appearance of the exterior of the company's products. In making this assumption, design team members were influenced by role stereotypes, which tend to associate the industrial design profession with artistic and creative individuals who focus on visual appearance and styling. This role perception is understandable in so far as an emphasis on visual aesthetics is a common denominator linking all industrial designers, despite differences in their individual backgrounds and personal approaches to design. While all industrial designers will give emphasis to visual appearance, some will attend to ergonomics considerations more so than will others. In other words, the link between industrial design practic~ and ergonomics is not self-evident. Indeed, the strength of this link depends on several interrelated factors. One such factor is the designer's formal training. During the three or four years of their training, students of industrial design will usually be exposed to different design philosophies, and their experiences in this respect will help to shape their own orientation toward design practice. This personal orientation, in turn, governs the attention that individual industrial designers will give to ergonomics considerations. This attention is also influenced by the attraction that the subject of ergonomics holds at a personal level for each industrial designer. These factors help to explain why ergonomics capability was so consistently linked to the recruitment of industrial designers. With the exception of Pump Suppliers' first industrial designer, all of the designers directly associated with the six cases were graduates of the School of Design of the Wellington Polytechnic. This school offered New Zealand's first qualification in industrial design and today it is still a major training

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ground for the New Zealand industrial design profession. Since the inception of this qualification in 1961, about 10% of the course content has been devoted to ergonomics topics. This emphasis ranks highly when compared with similar programmes in Australia (where the ergonomics content ranges between 0% and 9.5%) (Ward, 1990) and can be attributed to the educational and design philosophies of James Coe (1967, 1968, 1973) who occupied the position of Head of the School from 1960 through to 1976. The case records of Commercial Seating and Pump Suppliers show that where individual industrial designers are strongly interested in ergonomics and find themselves in receptive organizational settings, they may come to be recognized by other design team members as ergonomics champions. However, it would appear that such a role may be untenable for industrial designers, except perhaps in those situations where an organization employs more than one industrial designer. If an industrial designer is seen to emphasize ergonomics at the expense of other considerations, this may be interpreted by top managers as a lack of 'balance'. As a group, industrial designers were also generally sensitive to this issue. While they considered that ergonomics was an integral aspect of industrial design, they believed it should nevertheless only be a part. Where industrial designers explicitly applied ergonomics as a matter of course in the design process, this approach was generally accepted by other design team members. In Pump Suppliers, an ergonomics approach brought about a major shift towards a concern for the end user, while in Petrolco an ergonomics approach was at least tolerated because this was consistent with the customer orientation and the marketing philosophies that were being espoused by top management. By the mid-1980s, most of the companies in this study had announced officially that they subscribed to a marketing approach. Over time, ergonomics capability would continue to develop as industrial designers learned more about the ergonomics of particular products, and design team members learned about ergonomics from working alongside an industrial designer. The extent of learning undergone by industrial designers was influenced by factors such as their own interest in the subject of ergonomics, and the extent to which employing organizations were supportive of design research and experimentation. Learning by individuals other than the industrial designer was enhanced by factors such as personal interest to know more about the subject, a low degree of specialization in design teams, and an ability to see that ergonomic design could fit into a wider picture (which might involve JIT, TQM, work teams). However, even where some design team members learned a great deal about ergonomics, industrial designers usually remained the main source of expertise in this subject. For this reason, the ongoing development of ergonomics capability was still largely dependent on the continued employment of industrial designers over successive projects. Under particular conditions, ergonomics knowledge was transferred from the product development function and absorbed into other areas of the organization, such as marketing and operations. This transference of capability was encouraged where the level of interaction

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between industrial design consultants and personnel from other functional areas was relatively high. The level of this interaction is influenced by a range of factors, including the decision to use in-house industrial designers versus consultants, the extent to which crossfunctional team structures are used, and the presence of social and physical barriers, which tend to segment the organization. Transference was also influenced by the extent to which other individuals, particularly top managers, were interested in the subject of ergonomics. This interest was not merely the result of a personal predisposition, but also reflected the ability of these individuals to see how ergonomics could be utilized in areas in the business other than product design. This lateral thinking was enhanced where top management had acquired expertise in different functional areas of the organization. For instance, at Commercial Seating, the ergonomics knowledge acquired in product development was subsequently applied by owner-managers to the ergonomic design of Kanban trolleys, which would reduce the need for excessive manual handling in the company's manufacturing operations.

Staffing routines and top management orientation In the organizations in this study, top managers were very much involved in events surrounding the recruitment and ongoing employment of industrial designers. Not only did top management assume overall responsibility for major design initiatives undertaken in the organization, it was also usual for at least one top manager to lead the organization's design team(s). In the latter role, top managers would tend to become actively engaged in detailed design and development work. This 'hands-on' involvement of top managers was particularly evident where the total number of people employed in the design and development function was small, i.e. less than ten. Under these conditions of small size, the design and development function tends to be characterized by relatively low task specialization and few hierarchical levels. Top managers, as leaders of design teams, were key initiators of the decision processes that led ultimately to the recruitment of industrial designers. By participating directly in design team activities, top managers became more acutely knowledgeable about the design skills available within the organization. From this position, top managers were able to determine whether the available skills would be sufficient to achieve the required level of product quality. A low level of design skill is more likely to be deemed adequate in those organizations where a goal of high product quality does not feature. As a result, ergonomics capability is more likely to develop in those organizations which actively pursue a goal of high quality. This finding reinforces and extends Perrow's (1983) observation (i.e. that top management goals and perspectives are a significant influence) by specifying the type of goals that support ergonomics capability. If top managers are satisfied with achieving a level of quality that is no higher than that offered by competitors or specified by minimum standards, it is likely that their requirements for specialist research and development expertise will be minimal. Under these conditions, adequate design quality can be achieved through low-

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expertise strategies such as copying and reverse engineering. The interests and preferences of top management may impact on their use of staffing routines. Where managers become more concerned about the cost of employing an industrial designer than with achieving high product quality, they may tend to overly limit the involvement of industrial designers. Under these restricted conditions, there may be a preference for using consultant industrial designers only during certain stages of the design process. However, if industrial designers are called in after key product design decisions have already been made they not be able to apply an ergonomics approach effectively. Similarly, if they are not present during the later stages of design (and even production), industrial designers may find that the ergonomic features they have advocated are compromised or dropped altogether. Staffing decisions will thus impact on the development of ergonomics capability. The direct involvement of managers in product development activities did help to provide a supportive environment for those non-managerial staff who 'pushed' ergonomics. For example, at Commercial Seating, owner-managers mentioned ergonomics in their everyday conversations and worked closely with design and development staff. In doing so, these managers provided an environment in which their inhouse industrial designer could emerge and operate efficiently as an 'ergonomics advocate'.

Organizational configuration, top management and staffing routines While the goals and perspectives of top management may influence the decisions and actions made within an organization in relation to markets, products and staffing, top management will nevertheless be constrained by the particular configurations of organization structure and product strategy that have been previously realized by the organization. In other words, the choices of top management will be influenced by what has happened in the past. One explanation for this is that, over time, top management goals tend to become 'embedded' in organizations (Perrow, 1970). Top management assist in this embedding process, as their decisions in relation to organization structure, skills, and physical facilities help to give the organization its shape and character. However, as the organization acquires its distinctive characteristics, the resulting internal configuration will also tend to constrain the options that are available to managers in the future. The concept of organizational configuration helps to explain the earliness with which ergonomics capability emerges in an organization, and the extent to which it subsequently develops. In particular, those organizations (such as Pump Suppliers and Commercial Seating) that have tended to realize 'early or first to market' strategies (Ansoff and Stewart,' 1967) (and have developed their organizational structures to support this) are more inclined to invest in ergonomics than those organizations (such as Modern Furniture and Rangemakers) that have pursued 'late to market' strategies. This is because 'early or first to market' organizations will normally have had to invest in

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Ergonomics capability in product design and development: C. Slappendel research and development (including, where appropriate, the acquisition of ergonomics knowledge) in order to achieve and maintain their position of leadership. By contrast, organizations characterized by a 'late to market' strategy will spend less on research and development and specialist knowledge acquisition. These organizations achieve their competitive advantage by investing in engineering skills that will reduce product design and production costs. Over time, the product strategies of the six organizations in this study showed a high degree of continuity. It would seem that as an organization's product strategy emerges it may become increasingly difficult to change. Indeed, the difficulties associated with changing from one generic product strategy to another should not be underestimated. Thus, while most of the organizations in this study had at some stage been shocked into a burst of innovative activity by the action of competitors, major shifts in direction were generally related to changes in ownership, which brought new leaders to the fore with goals and values different from those supported in the past. It is significant that in two of the six cases in this study the emergence of ergonomics capability followed directly from a major change in ownership. Strategies that tended to favour the emergence and development of ergonomics capability emerged at an earlier date in those organizations operated by ownermanagers than in those organizations run by professional managers. This study also found a strong relationship between owner-managers and an emphasis on high product quality and product leadership. The external environment, top management and staffing routines The external environment that impacts on the emergence and development of ergonomics capability is represented in Figure 2. This figure shows three interrelated elements: individual organizations, sub-

4

i

P

I

Figure 2 The external environment that influences the emergence and development of ergonomics capability

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sectors, and government. Each of these elements influences, and is influenced by, the wider knowledge environment (consisting of specialist literature, standards, educational institutions, products, and professional networks). Managers will perceive features of the external environment, and their experiences in this respect may lead them to follow particular courses of action. For example, following the release of a competitor's product, the top management of Modern Furniture decided to develop fully a new office chair. Although the design concept was based on the work of industrial design students from Wellington Polytechnic's School of Design, the organization did not repeat this practice of employing industrial design expertise. It could be argued that while product-market pressures forced the company to innovate, this practice never became routine because it was fundamentally inconsistent with a strategy-structure configuration that had historically supported design imitation and only low levels of research and development activity. Trends in the regulatory environment affecting trade, and shifts in the sophistication of consumer demand, can influence the ergonomics capability of individual organizations. Evidence from the six cases shows that while accelerations in a trade liberalization trend (which reduced protection levels for the New Zealand manufacturing sector from the mid-1980s onwards) did not lead directly to the initial emergence of ergonomics capability in the six cases, these external changes did cause some organizations to raise their product quality aspirations. This resulted in the ongoing employment of industrial designers, which in turn supported the continued development of ergonomics capability. Industrial designers continued to be employed in the late 1980s, even when the reduced levels of import protection and export assistance available to manufacturers were overlaid by weak domestic demand. Rather than cease employing industrial designers altogether, most of the organizations responded to this difficult economic climate by becoming more careful in their use of these specialists. Overall, the pervasive influence of government policy is a major theme. Not only did government policy shape the competitive environment, it also had an indirect enabling effect on the knowledge environment through its support of education and training institutions (in particular the Wellington Polytechnic School of Design), and the formation of an advicegiving agency (the New Zealand Industrial Design Council). The cases of Pump Suppliers and Commercial Seating show clearly that encounters with these government-funded institutions immediately preceded the decision to employ an industrial designer. The consequences of ergonomics capability Although the question as to whether the six organizations applied their ergonomics capability effectively was peripheral to the main objectives of the research, it is clear that some of the ergonomics knowledge that was acquired and generated was embodied in products. Through the release of these products (and various other mechanisms) the ergonomics capability of the six

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organizations indirectly shaped aspects of both the organizational context and the wider external environment. The effects of ergonomics capability on the external environment may be as follows. First, an organization's products and practices will contribute to the wider knowledge environment of competing firms. These products and practices, particularly where they are explicitly associated with the term 'ergonomics', may help to create an interest in the subject. Second, by producing leading-edge products and informing customers of the significance of ergonomic features, organizations can impact on the level of demand sophistication. This may generate a requirement for all firms in a particular subsector to give some attention to basic ergonomics considerations. Third, organizations may use their capability to control the wider environment. The direct involvement of Commercial Seating in the standards-formulation process is an example of this. Organizations that have invested substantially in ergonomics capability may also act to control the 'poor' ergonomics practices of competitors. Ergonomics capability may have an influence on the inner context of organizations by encouraging new patterns of interaction between design team members and end users. For instance, the ergonomics approach used by Pump Suppliers' first industrial designer led other design team members in this company to give greater consideration to the requirements of end users. Lastly, an organization's current ergonomics capability will become a resource that will guide design activity in the future. On the one hand, experiential knowledge will inform the design decisions of individual design team members while, on the other hand, some of this knowledge will become part of an organizational memory that is communicated and maintained through the sharing of stories. At Commercial Seating and Pump Suppliers, the same story was told by different people when they recalled events surrounding the employment of their organizations's first industrial designer.

Condusion The main aim of this paper was to provide ergonomics practitioners with further insight into organizational factors that present themselves as obstacles to the utilization of ergonomics knowledge. Previous studies have tended to examine the nature of this problem within very large corporations in the USA and, as such, they are not directly applicable to other settings such as the New Zealand manufacturing companies that feature in this article. This study has shown that the emergence and development of ergonomics capability in New Zealand manufacturing organizations is closely linked to factors in the external environment, the organizational configuration, and top management orientation. The most direct influence, however, took the form of staffing routines involving industrial designers who had received a relatively comprehensive training in product ergonomics. The contribution of industrial designers to the ergonomic design of products needs to be more widely recognized (at least in New Zealand but possibly also

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elsewhere). For various reasons, the contribution of local industrial designers has not been appreciated by ergonomics practitioners and other people in New Zealand who have an active interest in ergonomics: there is a tendency to assume that manufacturers lack any capability in this area. These case studies, however, reveal that some New Zealand companies have built up at least two decades of experience in the application of ergonomic design. There are several reasons for this lack of appreciation. First, the majority of ergonomics practitioners are concerned with occupational safety and health problems primarily and have a limited understanding of product development. Second, industrial designers tend not to join professional ergonomics networks and they have limited inclination to disseminate or promote their activities in relation to ergonomic design. This situation is, no doubt, influenced by the pragmatic orientation of most industrial designers, and by the organizational context of industrial design, which may not reward information dissemination or permit disclosure of commercially sensitive information. The findings of this study suggest that improved cooperation between industrial designers and other groups interested in ergonomics is desirable. However, areas of conflict do need to be recognized. Conflict does revolve around fundamentally different emphases and orientations. In particular, those who favour a scientific approach may have some difficulty accepting the designers' view that ergonomics is but a part of design and that user-centred design can be approached 'intuitively'. Further conflict may arise where industrial designers perceive that ergonomists are encroaching on an area in which they have been active for many years. Another important conclusion to be drawn from the six case studies is that ergonomists cannot assume that ergonomics knowledge is merely 'used' by organizations in the sense that it is created 'out there' awaiting transferral to organizational sites of relative ignorance. This limited view is reinforced by the concept of 'knowledge utilization', which tends to overlook the capacity of organizations to generate specialist knowledge internally. The concept also implies a purposiveness in behaviour that may not always exist. Rather it appears that the process of ergonomics knowledge use might be better explained in terms of dynamic innovation processes through which an ergonomics capability emerges, develops or even declines. A focus on these processes also permits the use of related concepts such as organizational learning. Finally, this study also suggests that ergonomists need to be aware that some configurations of structure and strategy will limit their ability to increase an organization's ergonomics capability. Across the six cases, there were strong links between the overall level of ergonomics capability that developed and an organization's realized product strategy (and strategic type). It should also be noted that structures and strategies are remarkably persistent over time, and only appear to shift radically when there is a major shock to the organization, which often involves a change in ownership and/or new leadership. A knowledge of these contextual factors may help ergonomics practitioners (and industrial designers) to predict the receptiveness of clients to ergonomics advice.

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Ergonomics capability in product design and development: C. Slappendel

Acknowledgements An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 28th National Conference of the Ergonomics Society of Australia in Melbourne. The research reported in this article was supported by grants from the Massey University Research Fund.

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