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href="../AboutSearch.html"><br>About Search</a></td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> <!-- Search Box End --> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" ><img src="../../graphics/titles/HFES_Bulletin.gif" alt="HFES Bulletin" longdesc="" width="200" height="86" border="0" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="3" class="main" <!-- Content Area Begin--> <hr> April 2011<br> Volume 54, Number 4 <p><h2>USER TRIAL for ANSI/HFES 100</h2> <br><i>By Bruce Bradtmiller, Claire C. Gordon, and Thomas J. Albin</i> <p>One of the potential uses of ANSI/HFES 100  2007 (HFES 100) is to aid customers in purchasing office furniture that meets basic ergonomics requirements. Furniture designed using ergonomic principles can improve performance and reduce workplace injury and fatigue. Recently a large military customer tried to use this document for just that purpose--creating a purchase specification for office chairs based on HFES 100--and went out for bid to major furniture manufacturers. Instead of getting competing bids, however, this customer got push-back from manufacturers, who said all the requirements could not be met in a single chair. Seeking help, she contacted one of us (CCG) for advice. This presented us with a good opportunity to see whether the problem lay in the document itself or in user error. <p>We first analyzed the military requirements along with those in HFES 100 to see whether the user had developed the requirements directly from HFES 100 or whether there were differences. As a reminder, conformance with ANSI/HFES 100 is accomplished by meeting the requirements of the  shall statements. <p>Of the 16 seat and back requirements, 9 were exactly the same as those found in ANSI/HFES 100. Four requirements addressed chair characteristics that were not addressed at all in ANSI/HFES 100. Three of the requirements were similar to those in the standard but were more stringent. For example, HFES 100 requires a minimum seat width of 17.7 inches, whereas the military requirement was for 19 inches--a difference of 1.3 inches. Similarly, the standard indicates an option for adjustability in seat depth, saying only that if the seat is adjustable, the adjustment range must include 16.9 inches. In the purchase specification, an adjustment range of 3 inches for the seat depth was required, and the adjustment range needed to be between 15 and 20 inches (which would encompass the ANSI/HFES 100 requirement). <p>In the case of 7 armrest requirements, 3 were the same as HFES 100, but for the other 4, there was no requirement in the standard at all. Similarly, with the 5 requirements for the seat base and casters, one was the same but 4 were not addressed in HFES 100. In the latter case, one of these requirements is that, under continuous use, the chair support a 300-pound person. This requirement to accommodate heavier workers may be a good one to consider for the next revision of our standard. <p>Our analysis concluded that the conflicting and stringent requirements causing the manufacturer push-back were the result of  requirement creep, in which some recommendations had morphed into requirements, and the addition of requirements that were not in HFES 100. There did not seem to be a problem with HFES 100 itself. We recommended to the user that the requirements not fully supported by ergonomics science be removed from the purchase specification. However, our analysis also showed that the general format of the standard was a useful framework for the user to structure his own requirements--though some of those particular requirements proved too difficult to meet and may not have had a basis in ergonomics science. <p>As the revision of HFES 100 gets under way later this year, this  user trial of the standard will be available for the committee to use in its work. In the meanwhile, the current version of HFES 100 is available <a href="http://www.hfes.org/Publications/ProductDetail.aspx?ProductID=69" target="_blank">here</a>. <p><i>Bruce Bradtmiller is president of Anthrotech, a consulting firm specializing in anthropometry, and is division chair for the HFES Institute, which coordinates all standards activity within the society.</i> <p><i>Claire C. Gordon is the Army's Senior Research Scientist (ST) in Biological Anthropology and international convener of ISO's working group in Anthropometry (ISO TC 159/SC 3/WG 1); she is stationed at Natick Soldier RD&E Center in Natick, MA.</i> <p><i>Tom Albin is an ergonomic consultant at High Plains Engineering Services and chairs the committee currently reviewing ANSI/HFES 100 - 2007.</i> <hr> <p>Back to the <a href="http://www.hfes.org/web/HFESBulletin/Apr2011Main.html">Table of Contents</a> for the April 2011 <i>HFES Bulletin</i> <p><a href="http://www.hfes.org/web/BulletinPdf/0411bulletin.pdf" target="_blank">Download a .pdf version of this issue</a> <p><a href="http://www.hfes.org/web/BulletinArchive.html" target="_blank">Archive of past <i>HFES Bulletin</i> issues</a> (in .pdf format) <!-- Content Area End --> </td </tr> </table> <!--Body Area End --></td> </tr> </table> <!-- Body Table End --></td> </tr> <tr> <td><!-- Footer Table Start --> <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" width="100%" class="footer" summary="Footer Table"> <tr> <td colspan="2" class="Height_2px"><img src="../../graphics/invisible.gif" width="1" height="2" alt="" border="0" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="Width_1px"><img src="../../graphics/invisible.gif" width="1" height="1" alt="" border="0" /></td> <td class="footernav"><a href="../contact.html">Contact Us</a> &nbsp; | &nbsp; <a href="../sitemap.html"> Sitemap</a> &nbsp; | &nbsp; <a href="../privacy.html">Privacy Policy</a> &nbsp; | &nbsp; <a href="../legalnotices.html">Legal Notices</a> &nbsp; | &nbsp; <a href="../accessibility.html"> Accessibility Features</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="Width_1px"><img src="../../graphics/invisible.gif" width="1" height="1" alt="" border="0" /></td> <td> <p><a href="mailto:lois@hfes.org?subject=Tell us what you think about the new HFES Web site.">Tell us what you think about the new HFES Web site.</a></p> <p>Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, P.O. 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