Future AMT and ergonomics: Knowledge, organisational issues and human roles

The paper begins by outlining the growing market for Advanced Manufacturing Technology, providing a sample scenario and some instances of the human factors issues underlying this scenario. The importance of knowledge is emphasised. Two classes of 'knowledge-manipulating' knowledge and 'data-manipulating' knowledge are discussed, and the problems of error propagation are mentioned. Finally, the implications of fast response to the market are explored, from the point of view of optimising the enterprise's operations. The need for human factors input to AMT is emphasised throughout the paper.