Automation, stress and performance in industrial inspection.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Drury CG ; Goonetilleke RS ; Maurice M
• Description:
  A study was conducted to define job functions and allocate them between humans and machines in Industrial Quality Control with its range of demands from psychomotor through cognition. Quality control inspections in industry have been of two types, inspection by variables and inspection by attributes. In order to successfully perform an inspection task, an inspector must use senses, a search procedure, and decision making. Each can be related to task stress. Job stress may be evident among these workers due to poor person/environment fit, high job demands, lack of social support, and lack of participation in decisions. In this study of 48 subjects it was determined that the allocation of function between human and machine did produce differences in performance levels, almost all in the direction which would cause a system designer to prefer more manual functions. During a study of the free inspection condition it was determined that no worse performance levels were attained than when using automation and that the stress level was considerably lower among the less automated system. The measures used for those easiest to relate to stress such as heart rate were sensitive enough to find batch and period effects but showed little in the way of Automation Level effects. The authors conclude that, while automation changed performance, its effects on the already stressful activity of inspection were quite small. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Content Notes:
  in NTRL, no pdf
• Subjects:
  Mental Disorders Mental Health Occupational Health Safety Stress, Psychological Workplace
• Keywords:
  NIOSH-Grant; Psychological-disorders; Robotics; Job-stress; Task-performance; Workplace-studies; Physiological-response; Mental-stress; Psychological-stress
• Series:
  Grant Final Reports
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Final Grant Report
• Place as Subject:
  New York ; OSHA Region 2
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OEP - Office of Extramural Programs
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-138
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00185291
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB89164123
• Citation:
  Department of Engineering, State University of New York, Buffalo, New York 1988 Dec; :1-138
• Contact Point Address:
  Industrial Engineering Suny at Buffalo 342 Bell Hall Amherst, N Y 14260
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1989
• NORA Priority Area:
  Psychologic Disorders
• Performing Organization:
  State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  19840928
• Source Full Name:
  Department of Engineering, State University of New York, Buffalo, New York
• End Date:
  19871231
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:7dc847c09aedf140bc731323e8446b4703641ae07d6ad9e7b7238120dab30b8f7dcaa9b938d34d035f87873a0fe7fec262d5d13dcaf290925445e82b6de3b57d
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/246179/cdc_246179_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 168.02 KB ]