Human Factors in Operations Management: Comparative Perspectives on Decision Support Models

The integration of human factors and ergonomics (HF/E) into industrial and operational decision support modeling has grown rapidly over the past decade. In particular, physical aspects (e.g., physical workload, fatigue-recovery cycles) have been popular in developing human-centered solutions in operations management (OM). These solutions aim, first, to prevent both short- and long-term health issues among workers (e.g., work overload and occupational musculoskeletal disorders) and, second, to enhance the system performance of model-based solutions in real-world settings. However, adopting a human-centric perspective necessitates interdisciplinary knowledge. Specifically, each model or tool developed by ergonomists possesses unique characteristics (including the original experimental settings, the scope of collected data, and the intended application scenarios). They should thus be used with caution in managerial decision support models. To facilitate the knowledge transfer from HF/E to OM, this pilot study provides preliminary results of: (i) a scoping review of the integration of physical HF into decision support modeling in operations management; (ii) a critical evaluation of model assumptions and the interpretation of results from an HF/E perspective; and (iii) the development of a structural framework to suggest HF/E model choices. The current study presents preliminary results with an interdisciplinary perspective, which will be extended in future research.