The following information will give a brief chronology description for some ergonomics activities which are sponsored by PEI in around two decades (1987 – 2006). In the first decade (1987-1987), Perhimpunan Ergonomi Indonesia (PEI) did not organized many activities such as seminars, training, consultancy, etc. As professional organization, PEI is so dependent on its members who mostly come with academy background. The main problem is not so many disciplines offered ergonomics courses in their curriculum. Ergonomics is not a unique specialization in engineering, psychology and/or probably medical sciences. Many engineer also have wrong perception of ergonomics. In spite of Industrial Engineering, ergonomics is not looked as important and significant course to develop engineering or managerial career. Most of engineers have strong perception that engineering should deal with mathematics formula, physical phenomena (material, machine and equipment), manufacturing process; and not related with man or his interactions with machine. In the other side there were too few ergonomics scientist --- commonly called as ergonomist --- able to promote and socialize ergonomics as a relevance course for improving productivity and quality of work life in industry.
Although in the first decade, the association (PEI) was not formally organized and functioned well; but in the last year 1990s the situation was change. In accordance with the global issue of industrial competitiveness and the increasing of environmental awareness; a national ergonomics seminar and conference had been held on September 6-7, 2000 in Surabaya. The theme of the seminar was Industrial Ergonomics Role to Increase Global Competitiveness for Entering the Era 3rd Millenium. This seminar was organized by PEI and joint with Laboratory of Ergonomics and Work System Design – Department of Industrial Engineering ITS – Surabaya. At the same moment, a conference had also be held to rejuvenate and revitalization the organization of Perhimpunan Ergonomi Indonesia (PEI).
In the second decade (1987-2006), PEI has organized and sponsored many activities such as seminar, symposium and other scientific forum. Almost every year we can find an ergonomics seminar, symposium or workshop arranged in national or international scope to give a chance for Indonesian ergonomist to present his or her research results; sharing experience, knowledge, and how to implement a methods or ergonomics approach to solve the industrial problems. Some important seminars sponsored by PEI might be informed in the last three years, as follow:
• National Seminar on Ergonomics: “The Role of Ergonomics Discipline in order to Strengthening Small-Scale Traditional Industry and Tourism”. It had been conducted on September 13, 2003 and organized by the Faculty of Agriculture Technology Gajah Mada University – Yogyakarta. More than 70 research papers had been presented and published.
• National Seminar on Applied Ergonomics in Industry: The Role of Ergonomics to Support Industrial Processes in Effort to Improve Productivity and Quality. This seminar had been performed on March 27, 2004 in Yogyakarta and organized by Industrial Engineering Forum of Yogyakarta and Industrial Engineering Department of Universitas Pembangunan Nasional (UPN) – Yogyakarta. Almost 115 papers had been presented in this forum .
• National Seminar on Ergonomics 2: Ergonomics and Its Roles on Industrial Development in Indonesia. It will be arranged on October 9, 2004 in Yogyakarta; and again organized by the Faculty of Agriculture Technology, Gajah Mada University – Yogyakarta. About 80 research papers had been presented in this seminar.
• On May 23-25, 2005 had been performed SeaesIPS2005 – International Seminars and Conference on Ergonomics “Bridging the Gap” in Denpasar Bali. This was a joint meeting of the 8th South East Asia Ergonomics Society (SEAES) Conference and the 12th National Congress & 15th Scientific Seminar of the Indonesian Physiological Society. The theme “Bridging the Gap” calls for closer cooperation and increases better networking between various disciplines in meeting the goals of the conference. This international seminars and conference were organized by Post Graduate Program on Ergonomics and Sport Physiology, School of Medicine – Udayana cooperation with International Ergonomics Association, South East Asia Ergonomics Association (SEAES), etc. There were more than 200 hundreds research papers presented by academicians, experts, professionals, etc from the main disciplines of ergonomics and physiology.
• National Seminar on Human-Computer Interaction: Human Aspects in Computer-Based System. This seminar was organized by the Laboratory of Work System Design & Ergonomics – Department of Industrial Engineering, ITB and held on September 21-22, 2005 in Bandung. More than 20 papers were selected and presented; mostly discussed around the influence of computer, multimedia and information technology to human works.
• National Seminar on Ergonomics 2006 – Human Factors Engineering and Productivity. This seminar has been arranged on June 14-15, 2006 in Bandung, and managed by Perhimpunan Ergonomi Indonesia (PEI) - Bandung and the Laboratory of Ergonomics – Industrial Engineering Department of ITB.
• National Seminar on Ergonomics & OSH - The Role of Ergonomics and OSH for Enhancing Productivity and Quality of Work. This seminar has been conducted on July 29-30, 2006 in Surabaya and presented more than 120 research papers with divided by many topics from micro-to-macro ergonomics. Beside seminar, it was also performed a workshop on OHS Management. Both activities were organized by the Laboratory of Ergonomics & Work System Design – Industrial Engineering Department of ITS.
• Ergo Future 2006 - International Symposium on Past, Present and Future Ergonomics, Occupational Safety and Health. This symposium is now performing on August 28-30, 2006 in Denpasar – Bali and organized by School of Medicine – Udayana University.
• National Seminar on Macro Ergonomics’ Approach for Improving Organization Performance; and Workshop on Mannequin in Catia and 3D-Max for Ergonomics Analysis and Product Design. This seminar will be planned on next November 21-22, 2006 in Jakarta and organized by Industrial Engineering Department of Trisakti University, Industrial Engineering Department of Tarumanegara University; and Product Design Department of Trisakti University.
These seminars give such a road-map which the works of Indonesian Ergonomists who came from many different disciplines and institutions are reviewed. Their works have one thing in common, i.e., with the appropriate type of ergonomic interventions, there would be improvements in quality, productivity, working conditions, Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), better environment, reduction of rejects and rejection costs, and increase in profit. This works will also be treated in the field of ergonomics and OSH to take care the future Indonesia industrial challenges, such as still many wrong perception of ergonomics, the lowly educated and timid nature of the workers (especially who works in home, agricultural or traditional industries), the lack of concern and commitment for OHS and the lenient OHS regulations and other problems. Some of the challenges faced should take care for the worker, care for the people, care for the quality and productivity of work, care for the new-advanced technology, care for the environment, and last but not least care for the nation.
In many cases, Indonesian ergonomist found that some of the machine or equipment used in the industry might not be appropriate to be applied, because of their differences in anthropometry. These differences had ergonomic consequences on industrial machinery, equipment and tools, e.g. some transferred machinery from the west countries required excessive physical strength to operate for the workers in Indonesia and other Asia countries. Therefore, the equipment needed to be redesigned or modified to increase effectiveness, efficiency, safety and comfort. The main problem there is still lack of references on the anthropometric characteristics data of the Indonesian population and its sources of variations.
Most industrial ergonomics engineer did many studies to solve the real ergonomic and OHS problems in industry. Some ergonomic improvements had been done, planned and found that most of them were implemented. Moreover, these improvements had increased productivity, which was shown by the more effective use of materials, energy costs of work, better work quality, and more comfort. Many other studies also found much mismatch between workers and the machinery they were forced to work with, which hampered productivity and caused friction in the workplaces. Ergonomics was used to solve the problems to increase productivity, maximize product quality, improve usability and enhance job satisfaction of the workers.
Ergonomic problems could be found commonly in traditional industries, especially the area of agricultural, home or small-scale industries. Many studies have presented the use of ergonomic interventions for various types of agricultural projects (small farming), textile industries, furniture, smallholder farming, etc. We have found that with the appropriate types of ergonomic interventions, productivity, safety, quality of the product outputs and the effectiveness of the production system would improve. Last but not least production cost could be minimized. Industrial ergonomic problems are not only found on the production floor, but also looked at the whole production system (organizational/industrial scale). Ergonomic studies are initially focused to the interaction between human-machine or human-work place environment; and then shifted to response social-environmental changes. Many macro-ergonomics studies has been conducted to find the suitable method and approach to solve the industrial problems which are more complex and uncertainties, such as participatory ergonomic, system approach, SHIP, TQM, supply-chain management, etc.
In Indonesia factories, most of the workers are low educated, with only basic six to nine years of school education. Also, most of the factory workers are from the poor. Although ergonomics may be taught to these workers, they are too timid to question the authorities when they are faced with poor OHS conditions, fearing that they may lose their jobs and it also means lose their future life. The industrial management is generally not concerned for the operators' OHS because cheap labor is in abundance. Some lowly educated workers are also not safety conscious. Based on the many surveys to factory managements, all reported that their workers refused to wear safety apparatus. When interviewed, these workers reported the inconvenience of wearing the apparatus during doing the tasks. Thus, with these poor attitudes, the ergonomists find a great challenge to change the mindset of the management or the workers to adopt ergonomics. Enforcing the OHS regulations is difficult, as there are too many companies to audit. Much manpower is needed to audit every company at least once a year. Moreover, since auditing is just one observation, many OHS violations may not be found in that single observation. Besides, if the enforcer is too strict, the foreign investors may relocate their factories to other countries. Thus, with these situations, the regulations and their enforcement do not create any urgency for the companies to adopt ergonomics programs and improve the working conditions of the workers.
Although many studies, researches, training, seminars and socialization about ergonomics, human factors and OHS have been done with micro-up to-macro themes; but it seem that we are practically still running at the same place up to now. In facts, workers are still working in their traditional or obsolete methods and bad conditions. Accidents are still happening in inside and outside industry with the main root-cause is human unsafe behavior error. Industrial products can not compete in global market, and so many manufacturing industries collapsed or relocated to foreign countries. Ergonomic analysis and evaluation provide a roadmap for what issues must be addressed and what actions will be needed for improvements.
The successful ergonomics implementations in the national industries, as presented in so many seminar papers, have shown the effectiveness of ergonomics in improving productivity, quality and OHS, increase profit, and reduce rejection costs and industrial accidents. Ergonomics interventions and design innovations can improve global competitiveness as well as enrich prosperity at work, in industry and in nation. The future management with new mind set is really needed to start and anticipate the changes in solving the industrial ergonomics problem.
An effective industrial ergonomic program should contain at least two points of reference to insure successful navigation of the ergonomic terrain. These are management commitment and employee involvement. Without management commitment, most programs fail in a company. For an ergonomics program it is important to tangibly demonstrate that commitment. This can be done by assigning ergonomic & OHS staff directly to the program and providing time during the workday to deal with ergonomic concerns, by establishing clear goals for the program and evaluating the result, by communicating to all stakeholders the importance of the program and finally, by making resources available for the program itself, such as training and tools for implementing improvements. Employee involvement insures employees are motivated to take ownership of ergonomic-driven changes. This can easily be accomplished by creating teams to collect input and evaluate and make recommendations on corrective actions for workplace hazards.
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