HFES’ Role in Setting Ergonomics Standards
Posted July 07, 2025
By: Dr. Bob Fox and the Occupational Ergonomics Technical Group
Have you ever wondered how HFES is involved in US technical committees?
Did you know that many HFES members serve as liaisons in several technical committees to help bridge the gap between research and policy to develop ergonomic standards?
We asked Dr. Bob Fox to offer an insight on how HFES plays a pivotal role in these committees that help shape ergonomic standards. Read on to find out more!
Background:
HFES administers the US involvement in ISO Technical Committee 159 (TC159) on ergonomics on behalf of the American National Standards Institute or ANSI. The US Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to TC159 on ergonomics consists of the US TAG chairs that serve on various subcommittees of TC159. These subcommittees and respective chairs are:
- General ergonomics principles (Chair: Peregrin Spielholz)
- Anthropometry and biomechanics (Chair: Neal Wiggermann)
- Ergonomics of human-system interaction (Chair: Ram Maikala)
- Ergonomics of the physical environment (Chair: Amrita Maguire)
- The TC159 TAG is chaired by Bob Fox, who is also the HFES Technical Standards Division chair.
The TAG chairs all do an outstanding and dedicated job of coordinating the US experts on the different working groups, organizing US responses on standards ballots and, as part of the TC159 TAG, handling the business of administration of ISO policies and projects.
Current Ergonomic Standards:
In addition to the ISO TC159 ergonomics standards work, HFES also has involvement in other standards-making activities.
Currently there are two ANSI/HFES standards:
1.The ANSI/HFES 100-2007 Human Factors Engineering of Computer Workstations (which continues to be in revision under the leadership of Mark Benden)
2. The ANSI/HFES 400-2021 Human Readiness Level Scale in the System Development Process which was completed under the leadership of Judi See and will be due for a review in 2026.
The impact of HFES members on other standards:
The ANSI/HFES 400-2021 has been very successful and is influencing other standards development.
We also maintain a number of liaisons with other standards developing organizations and others interested in standards. For example,
- Stephen Merriman serves as the DOD TAG Liaison which provides information on current DoD activities and plans concerning HFE/HSI.
- Divya Srinivasan is the liaison with the ASTM Committee 48 on Exoskeletons and Exosuits. HFES and ASTM have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for collaboration on exoskeleton standards work.
- Most recently, a Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) was signed between HFES and SAE G-45, thanks to the efforts of Stephen Merriman and others. was signed between SAE G-45 and HFES. SAE G-45 is very comparable to ISO TC159/SC4 in its focus on Human-System Interaction and are seeking collaborative efforts in the review and updating of standards projects.
Future Steps:
We continue to work through what these relationships will entail and what the benefit will be for our membership. The Technical Standards Division also includes a Technical Standards Committee which was created to coordinate crosstalk between standards organizations about common issues and to allow a greater and more diverse field of potential reviewers and subject matter experts. We also continue to assist in the development of standards projects and ideas for new standards that may be outside of the traditional standards-making arena.
What to look forward to in the ASPIRE 2025 Conference:
In an effort to communicate our HFES standards activities to our membership, we generally have two or more sessions on standards in the HFES Annual Meeting/ASPIRE. These sessions cover the scope and details of our standards work and will increasingly focus on the needs of practitioners.
Future newsletter updates will examine in more detail the work of each of the individual SCs, committees and liaisons.
For further information see the Technical Standards page under Publications on the HFES website: https://www.hfes.org/Publications/Technical-Standards or contact Dr. Bob Fox at drbobfox56@gmail.com.
Thank you to the Occupational Ergonomics Technical Group for being TG of the Month for July!