Survey about take up and use of ergonomics standards

Ladies and gentlemen,

Ergonomic standards can set a benchmark against which companies can measure the ergonomic quality of their workplaces, services and products. Furthermore standards can be used to promote ergonomically designed technologies and best practices, spreading innovation and ergonomic knowledge throughout the market and standards can increase the safety of products and foster the protection of health and the environment.

Nowadays, more than 150 standards are published for many different aspects of ergonomics by ISO - the International Standardization Organisation - and CEN - the European Committee for Standardization (especially CEN/TC 122: the Technical committee 122 “Ergonomics”). The best covered subjects are machinery safety, workplace and equipment design, visual information and computer operation.

However, the question arises whether the information provided by these standards are helpful for the potential users (stakeholders) and supporting them in their task.

Instead of increasing the quantity of standards the attention should shift towards increasing the quality of the standards, such that the standards are useful, desired and used by the relevant stakeholders.

In order to realize this, a Strategic Advisory Group of CEN/TC 122 was established to consider the strategic issues needed for improving the take up and use of ergonomics standards. In cooperation with FEES (Federation of European Ergonomics Associations) the SAG has developed a questionnaire to ask the needs and suggestions for improvements in usability and applicability of ergonomics standards.

We kindly invite you to support us by answering the questions.
The questionnaire is available in English, German and French.

Please help us to improve the use and application of European standards on ergonomics.

Thanks a lot in advance for supporting CEN/TC 122

Georg Krämer    Dr. Martin Schütte

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Page created 2009 - last revision 07.04.2011