March 27 – 30, 2017 at the Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort, Orlando, FL, USA

March 27 – 30, 2017 at the Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort, Orlando, FL, USA

The Applied Ergonomics Conference (AEC) is one of the largest and most impressive ergonomics conferences
in North America. Presenters are practitioners sharing real-world experiences and practical solutions to
common problems in industry. This conference provides comprehensive and broad-spectrum education for
employees at all levels (managers to professionals to line-workers).

The Conference also provides:

• Companies around the world with an avenue for recognition of expertise and achievements in ergonomics as well as cost-effective business practices/solutions.
• An opportunity for professionals from a variety of specialties to discuss ergonomics issues with similar causes, effects or solutions (e.g. using manual handling equipment to transport cleaning equipment vs. auto parts vs. boxed customer products).
• An opportunity to share ideas between non-similar organizations (e.g., moving items in distribution sites vs. transporting cleaning equipment in a hospital vs. transferring items in an assembly process).
• A meeting venue for multi-site companies or professional groups to meet together while engaging in continuing education opportunities. (Have a mini-conference with your peers while onsite.)
• A networking opportunity for professionals and line workers from similar organizations (e.g., automaker to automaker) that facilitates an informal exchange of ideas.
• An avenue for general conversation/networking with subject matter experts (SMEs).
  Healthy competition and sharing of ideas within your organization when applying for the Ergo Cup competition.
• A focused avenue for CEUs required for licensure or professional organization participation.
• Informal Roundtable discussions where people with similar interests will meet with a facilitator to discuss particular topics of interest, sharing what each participant does or would like to do at his/her facility.
• An opportunity for new speakers to gain confidence and comfort with presentation skills, especially graduate students.
• An opportunity to nominate a practitioner or student for the Creativeness in Ergonomics (CE) Practitioner and Student of the Year Awards. A monetary award is being given in each category.
• An avenue for students/job seekers to meet potential employers.

European ergonomists belonging to a Federated European Ergonomic Society enjoy a discounted fee.

Current deadlines for the AEC 2017:

• AEC 2017 – Abstract Submission for Poster Presentation Deadline: November 11, 2016. The direct link to the abstract submission page is https://www.xcdsystem.com/appliedergo/abstract/index.cfm?ID=wp10YLz
• AEC 2017 – Ergo Cup Submission Deadline: October 28, 2016. The direct link to submit an application is https://www.xcdsystem.com/appliedergo/abstract/index.cfm?ID=z5odi20

For more information please visit: www.appliedergoconference.org

Ergonomics – Ergonomists
September 21-23, 2016, Marseille.

Ergonomics – Ergonomists
September 21-23, 2016, Marseille.

The 51st SELF Congres congress aims to focus on ergonomics and the profession of ergonomist which are both involved in multiple changes ( which may be social, managerial, academic, scientific … ). Several issues are on the table and will be put in debate :

• What are the ergonomists practices ?
• How does the profession change in relation to the social, technical, organizational requirements ?
• Do the changes in the disciplines fit with the present or emerging socio-economical needs ?
• In this frame, what are the benefits of the research in ergonomics ?
• How does the vocational training change in relation with the profession ( s ) changes ?

Generally speaking all these issues show the diversity of what is at stake in this congress

• To encourage the exchange between teachers, researchers and practitioners concerning the contributions
  of each other in the development of the discipline and the profession ;
• To facilitate the dialogue between the generations, based on the past and present researches and practices ;
• To stimulate the encounters between various experts of the field and the related disciplines due to “ enlarged ” lectures ;
• To make the discipline visible and the acknowledgment of its added value in the society and in the companies, focusing on what is notable, on our simultaneous and indissociable contributions concerning the health and the performance ;
• To open paths for reflections in order to prepare the future of our ( unique or multiple ? ) profession.

Organizing Committee

• Sylvain LEDUC ( Aix-Marseille University ), Gérard VALLÉRY ( University of Picardy ),
• Alexis CORRADI ( Expertis ), Pascal ETIENNE ( SELF Vice-President, International Affairs ),
• Annie DROUIN ( Responsible for the SELF History Commission ),
• Patrice PETITJEAN ( Ergogenčse ),
• Aurélie CASTEL ( ERGOPACA ),
• Fatiha FERRAD ( CINOV ).

This conference is endorsed by the Federation of the European Ergonomics Societies

DATES

• 15th January > Lectures reception
• 15th February > Symposia reception
• 2nd April > Notification to the authors
• 1st June > Reception of the final proposals
• 1st July > Program publication

Jump to the congress site: http://www.ergonomie-self.org/heading/heading49289.html

The Federation of the European Ergonomics Societies was represented by Pascal ETIENNE at the Conference on Key Enabling Technologies (KETs event) in Strasburg.

The Federation of the European Ergonomics Societies was represented by Pascal ETIENNE at the Conference on Key Enabling Technologies (KETs event) in Strasburg.

The main parts of the meeting were the plenary session, the workshop and the B to B meetings

Plenary session:

In the plenary session were presented the expectations and advices from the EU Commission in research activities at the Horizon 2020 and the resources in support at the European and national level (the national contact points – NPC): see the presentations attached from the EU Commission and the NPC services

Workshops

There was 7 workshops in parallel in the meeting: on advanced materials and nanotechnologies, sustainable process industries, factories of the future, KET for healthcare and biotechnologies, energy efficient buildings, NMB support action and EU-US international cooperation.

Pascal ETIENNE attended the workshop on “the factory of the future” where about twenty persons presented their projects on different issues like:  robotics, nanotechnologies, non destructive tests, automated manufacturing tests, data analysis,… . But there was no link between the different presentations and no discussion organized during the workshop.

Pascal ETIENNEI presented FEES and  had several discussions with different participants (see below) after the presentation.

B to B meetings and contacts

The discussions have been held with :

• Andrea Gulacsi (CEN CENELEC research integration Unit manager). It is interesting to make the link between the FEES projects on creativity and the CEN CENELEC projects and standards in the field of innovation.
• Thierry Blandet (ICUBE-Strasburg) is an engineer who works in the field of virtual reality, computer graphics. He is involved in a project developing tools based on virtual reality for surgeons were an ergonomist is involved. He was convinced of the necessity to associate ergonomists in design projects.
• Paolo Cicconi (Politechnical University of Marche, Italy). He works as engineer on the design and simulation especially on clean products. There are ergonomists in his department. I have mentioned the SIE and the probability of a SIE conference next year in this Italian Region.
• Francesco Ziprani,   R§D manager of MARPROSS, Italy, a company which works on man / machine interaction
• Naim Kosayyer, from VIZ, a   French startup that works on the issue “data science” : the way to give all the meaning of different kinds of data
• Alfons H. Salden, who is member of “Almende organizing network”, a private research body in NL. I have presented him FEES and mentioned the possibility to cooperate at national level with the NL Ergonomics and Human Factors society.

Conclusions

The slides presented in the plenary sessions can be downloaded here.

It was interesting for FEES to attend the meeting in order to benchmark the issue and to show that FEES exists and makes proposals.

For further information Email to: secretary-general@ergonomics-fees.eu

A scientific workshop was organized June 2015 in Lisbon by the Portuguese Ergonomics Association, represented by Teresa Cotrim, co-organized with the Italian Ergonomics Association, represented by Sara Albolino, and supported by FEES, represented by Pascal Etienne.

Approaching the IEA2018 Congress the principal aim was starting a debate among professionals of different fields about the more effective way to develop creativity in practice, through the use of ergonomics. The main challenges of this workshop were to question the participants about:

A scientific workshop was organized June 2015 in Lisbon by the Portuguese Ergonomics Association, represented by Teresa Cotrim, co-organized with the Italian Ergonomics Association, represented by Sara Albolino, and supported by FEES, represented by Pascal Etienne.

Approaching the IEA2018 Congress the principal aim was starting a debate among professionals of different fields about the more effective way to develop creativity in practice, through the use of ergonomics. The main challenges of this workshop were to question the participants about:

• Are ergonomists able to be creative and to produce work that is both novel and appropriate?
• How can ergonomists contribute to design work environments for creativity?
• How can Ergonomics help organizations to better use its internal resources for product and process innovation?
• Can the existing ergonomics knowledge on work environments for comfort, health and safety be applied to foster creativity and innovation in organizations?

Main orientation for the workshop:

• Creativity involves the generation of novel and useful ideas, while innovation entails the implementation of these ideas into new products and processes.
• This sequence seems logical and fairly evident. However, even a brief look at the innovation efforts of organizations reveals that they face many challenges and obstacles in maintaining smooth and balanced innovation processes.
• Idea generation requires experimentation, disrupts routines, challenges common assumptions and is closely associated with explorative activities.
• In contrast, idea implementation requires a process, efficiency, goal orientation, and routine execution—attributes most often associated with exploitative activities.
• Useful ideas are generally valued, but the more novel they are, the more questions are raised about their practicality, reproducibility, and reliability, thereby increasing uncertainty for decision makers that allocate resources and those in charge of implementing creative ideas.
• Process innovations that are relatively more systemic in nature and product innovations that are more autonomous.

Main Outcomes of the workshop (the speakers agreed that):

• Ergonomists contribute to design work environments for creativity by using their knowledge on work systems.
• As much as a system is complex and safety critical, the more human operators’ skills, abilities and experience are important for the system efficiency and safety.
• The ergonomic projects strongly involve human operators at the sharp end and focus on observation on the field, leading to the identification of human behaviors that promote creative solutions at the organizational level.
• Lifelong training enhance human operators that are potentially creative, to find new solutions for an unexpected work-related problem as the situation requires.
• Creative products can be developed based on participatory ergonomics and by using a human centered design approach.
• Ergonomics conceptual approaches can give an important contribute to create resilient systems.
• According to the ever changing of the world, it is important to make a shift in the view of some main concepts as the one of safety and pay attention more to understanding the context instead of trying to catch a specific content in procedures and formal projects. We could resume it with the slogan: “From the content to the context in order to develop creativity and design”.

Program:

• ERGONOMICS IN FRONT OF THE CREATIVITY IN THE FUTURE WORK
  Pascal Etienne (FEES, France)
• FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR ERGONOMICS
  Francisco Rebelo (Ergonomics Laboratory, FMH / ULisboa, Portugal)
• PORTUGUESE INNOVATION STANDARDS – SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT & INNOVATION
  Pedro Ferreira (SGS, Portugal)
• HOW DOES THE TECHNOLOGY PROVIDE THE RIGHT RETAIL EXPERIENCE FOR EACH CUSTOMER’S URGENCY?
  Inês Gonçalves (Novabase, Portugal)
• NURTURING CREATIVITY WITHIN SAFETY CRITICAL SYSTEMS
  Anabela Simões (CIGEST, Portugal)
• CREATING RESILIENT SOLUTIONS AT THE SHARP END: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE TUSCANY REGION
  Sara Albolino, Elena Beleffi and Giulio Toccafondi (Center for Patient Safety – Tuscany Region, Italy)