Industrial Psychology and Human Factors Group, Cranfield University

Human factors are critical to manufacturing performance. Although production systems are advancing to involve greater levels of automation and digitisation, workforce behaviours and attitudes directly affect the adoption and operational effectiveness of new processes and technologies. The key challenge that manufacturing organisations currently face is understanding how best to design and integrate new systems, processes and technologies they need to optimise efficiency and well-being.

The Industrial Psychology and Human Factors Group provides strong experience and expertise in applying scientific research to understand and address human-centred issues in manufacturing organisations.

We are a designated team that has built up significant experience working in the manufacturing industry, particularly within the aerospace sector, to deliver high quality research and effective solutions in human-centred contexts. This experience gives us a high level of understanding and skill for working directly with clients to establish their specific individual needs, and for designing and conducting the most appropriate research or intervention they need within constraints and sensitivities. We are accomplished in a wide range of approaches and techniques that we can combine or apply individually depending on requirements, and in working directly with personnel to promote their engagement and acceptance in projects.

Our areas of research include:

- Human-robot interaction – we identify and examine specific psychological and behavioural factors that influence collaborative and close-proximity working conditions and performance.

- Human-systems integration – we evaluate the effectiveness of mixing people and technology by measuring how system elements increase or decrease operator performance and welfare, for example via mental workload, awareness, satisfaction, etc.

- Tacit skills capture – we extract precise and in-depth cognitive detail of the procedures and decisions that people use to perform tasks, deconstructing far beyond what can be observed.

- Usability and User experience – we evaluate key aspects of user-centredness to identify how to optimise efficiency and well-being in the design or redesign of systems.

- Cognitive analysis –  we examine how people receive and respond to external stimuli and demands using a variety of traditional and innovative techniques to combine subjective and objective measures for stronger reliability and validity.

- Physical analysis – we assess ergonomic suitability and impacts of workspace and workplace environments using traditional postural analysis methods and digital human modelling analysis, and also use non-optical motion capture in situations where the body is occluded.