Course syllabus

Course-PM MPP027

Production ergonomics & Work design

 SP4, spring term 2026 (7.5 hec)          last updated: 2026-03-20

This course is offered by the department of Industrial and Materials Science

Welcome to the course MPP027, Production Ergonomics & Work Design. We hope you will enjoy and be challenged by this perspective of production engineering work, which will introduce you to the human aspects of production systems and how you can design healthier and more productive workplaces.

Please note that the course documents may change in minor details up until March 23rd when the course starts. 

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MAIN COURSE INSTRUCTORS:                                                                                 
Cecilia Berlin, Ph.D. (examiner)              Peter Almström, Ph.D.
031-772 1290                                         031- 772 1283
cecilia.berlin@chalmers.se                      peter.almstrom@chalmers.se

COURSE ASSISTANT:                                                                                 
Johanna Penner
031-772 2901
johanna.penner@chalmers.se           

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Course objectives

Production Ergonomics and Work Design (PEWD) is an engineering discipline concerned with supporting the safe, sustainable, healthy, effective and economic involvement of humans in industrial work. The course relates engineering improvements to productivity factors in industrial operations and introduces human requirements and capacities during work, covering individual, physiological, biomechanical, work-environmental and social aspects.

Course Content and Organization

The course content is defined by the activities as indicated in the detailed course schedule. The course consists of lectures, quizzes, exercises, lab work, and a group project. The exercises, labs and project introduce students to pen-and-paper as well as virtual methods for work method and time studies, plus methods for physical workload assessment.

The project involves organizing yourselves as a team, booking time to carry out the project and independently performing tests and measurements outside of scheduled class time. To facilitate this, your course management will assist you in assembling in groups. 

Learning outcomes

The course aims to enable you to accomplish the list of skills in the Learning Outcomes table below. The course provides a ‘toolbox’ of methods that you can apply in various industrial applications to improve ergonomics/human factors and productivity in parallel. Students will learn important considerations of human work in production environments, and will be equipped with the skills to analyze manual work, identify ergonomics problems as well as productivity potentials, prioritize among them, design improvements, and evaluate solutions from different perspectives.

The knowledge gained through the course is fundamental when designing workplaces, products, and machines for industrial production.

Learning outcomes	Activities	Examination
Explain why human factors issues must be considered when designing industrial work	Lectures, Home studies, Project, Presentation, Quizzes (generally)	Project, Presentation, Assignments (generally)
Identify harmful work conditions on the basis of theory and methods	Lectures, Home studies, Midway project report, LAB	Assignments corresponding to lecture(s); LAB
Discuss different work environment parameters’ effect on ergonomics	Lecture, Home studies, Project	Assignment corresponding to lecture; Project
Carry out a design for assembly (DFA) study	Lecture, Home studies	Assignment corresponding to lecture
Select and apply a proper method to study and quantify human physical workload in an observed situation	Lecture, LAB, Project	Assignment corresponding to lecture; LAB, Project
Select and apply a predetermined time system	Lecture, Project	Assignment corresponding to lecture;  Project
Design an appropriate material presentation at a workplace.	Lecture, Project	Assignment corresponding to lecture;  Project
Justify why and explain how to carry out a set-up improvement	Lecture	Assignment corresponding to lecture
Select appropriate hand tools for improving ergonomics and productivity in manual assembly	Lectures, Project	Project
Explain and justify recommendations and limit values for mental and social working conditions, in the long and short term	Lectures	Assignment(s) corresponding to lecture(s); Project
Explain how human physical measurements affect workplace and equipment design	Lecture,  Project	Assignment corresponding to lecture; Project
Carry out a time study and a performance rating	Lecture, Project	Assignment corresponding to lecture; Project
Evaluate a work place design solution from an economical point of view (including HF aspects)	Lecture, Project	Assignment corresponding to lecture; Project
Motivate and defend a proposed work place design solution	All lectures, Project	Project
Use knowledge about anthropometry, cognitive abilities and user needs to design a workplace that gives good accommodation to a diverse workforce and supports equity, equality and inclusion in the work tasks	Lecture, Project	Assignment corresponding to lecture; Project

Examination

Completion of the following mandatory grading elements and activities are required to pass the course:

Individual component (60%)

Group component (40%)

Presence and passing grade for individual activities: Mandatory classroom activities (Ergonomics methods Lab, Guest Lecture) Lecture attendance: max 2 bonus points for attending >80% of non-compulsory lectures Individual feedback on other project groups at project seminar Grade 1 or 2 on each question from the individual Assignments + peer feedback (min. 12 points, max 30 points). Individual grade levels:  12 - 18.5p        min 40%         Grade 3            19 - 24.5p        min 64%         Grade 4         25 - 30p           min 83%         Grade 5

Passing grade for group project activities: ·       Group contract/ project plan ·       Present state analysis (first report) ·       Participation in final project seminar, with peer evaluation ·       Project presentation ·       Grade 1 or 2 on all the criteria for the final project report (min. 10 points, max 20 points) - see the rubrics in “G6: Final hand-in of PEWD Project report” Project grade levels:  10 - 13.5p         min 50%         Grade 3            14 - 16.5p         min 70%         Grade 4         17 - 20p            min 83%         Grade 5

 

Total Grade levels (individual + project part)
22 - 33p 33.5 - 41.5p 42 - 50p	min 44% min 67% min 83%	Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5

 

Mandatory participation

Attendance is required at the Physical ergonomics lab, the midway tutoring session, the Industry Guest lecture and at the Final project presentation seminar, for a passing grade. These events are marked in the course schedule with *. 

Attendance

Regular participation is rewarded with course points. 2 points are awarded for registered attendance of ≥80% of non-mandatory lectures, and 1p for ≥60%. 

Assignments 

Your understanding of each week’s course contents is examined using online assignments, examining the contents of the lectures and associated reading materials. The assignments are assembled into a portfolio that the examiner considers as the basis for the individual grade.
All assignments are released at the start of the course and students must individually complete these (using literature references) and hand in answers by the deadline specified on the course schedule for full points. Students have the option to postpone hand-in of quizzes to the end of SP4 (June 7th), at the cost of -1 point per delayed essay.

Please hand in all documents in PDF format using the online Canvas Assignments interface.

Unless otherwise specified, each Essay is graded on a scale of 0-1-2, where 0 = fail. 

No academic fraud (plagiarism)

Each essay answer MUST BE INDIVIDUALLY FORMULATED – all hand-ins are analyzed for copied text using the automatic system URKUND and no plagiarism of sources or between students is tolerated! Students suspected of cheating will be warned and possibly reported to the Chalmers discipline committee, who can suspend you from your studies, the campus grounds and all digital access for up to six weeks. 

AI use, mainly for improvement of language, is tolerated but should be divulged honestly.
Generally, great care must be exercised when using AI to generate examples, explanations or suggesting references, as many AI:s tend to provide an answer regardless of whether they are trained on correct data or not.
Please see the MPP027 course statement on use of AI support. 

Project

The project requirements are described in detail in a separate Project PM and involve several group hand-ins. Deadline dates are specified in the Course Schedule and Assignment Guide.

Literature

The main literature for the course, Handouts and slides will be made available at the Literature module in Canvas.

E-books can be accessed from a computer on the Chalmers network (including the Nomad and Eduroam wifi networks) or via Chalmers library homepage.