Scotland

The Scottish Ergonomics Forum (SEF) was started in 1999 by Kevin Tesh. The aims of the Group are to provide informal opportunities for networking, discussion, exchange of ideas and socialising for people with an interest in ergonomics/human factors. Our membership is very broad and covers a large geographical area from the Scottish Borders up to the Highlands and Islands. Our activities range from planning meetings, where members are invited to contribute their thoughts on appropriate events throughout the year, to visits to industrial sites and places of interest to our members. Members and non-members are welcome to attend, from anywhere in the UK.

The current group co-ordinator is Richard Scaife of The Keil Centre Limited. Richard is a director of the Keil Centre and specialises in human factors applied to health and safety, including human error, safety culture and human reliability. The SEF has a core group of members who have consistently showed support to the group and its activities. Richard is actively supported in running the group by Janette Edmonds, Principal Consultant Ergonomist at The Keil Centre Limited specialising in human factors and ergonomics in a range of industry sectors, and Margaret Hanson of WorksOut specialising in the assessment of ergonomic workplace risks.

The groups events have been varied over the last few years, ranging from meetings in Edinburgh to visits to places of interest to our members. Recent examples of such visits are the NATS control centre in Prestwick, the Falkirk Wheel control room and Edinburgh Air Traffic Control Tower. We try to start each year with a meeting of members to gain some insights into activities and subjects that they would like to see covered throughout the year, and use our members’ contacts to help gain access to places of interest. We ran a successful symposium for the 60th Anniversary celebrations at Grangemouth in Scotland (thanks go to Ineos for providing the venue) at which a number of our members presented papers on a range of themes to demonstrate the breadth of experience here in Scotland.

In 2010, we are going to start with a meeting of members to get input on future activities, and have some interesting ideas to start with following the IEHF Annual Conference. These include bridging the gap between practitioners and researchers, human factors as a learning tool, and human factors in the regulation of Scottish business. We will look to our members to help develop these and other themes and work out what we should be doing over the course of the year by way of meetings, presentations, discussions, visits and social events.

We get some fantastic support from a loyal band of members who come to meetings and events frequently and make the effort in setting things up rewarding. However, we need more - we need to increase the number of people attending meetings, especially those where we plan the calendar for the coming year. If you want a say in what we do please come along and let us know what you want to see, so we can put the effort in and get it on the plan for the year.

Recent meeting
NATS Edinburgh air traffic control tower, 26 March 2009
Anyone who has ever driven past, or has flown into Edinburgh airport, will recognise the iconic control tower building, which is alive with technology, both to control aircraft into and out of the airport, and also to make the building a comfortable place of work.
NATS, the UK’s premier air traffic control service provider, kindly hosted a visit from the Scottish Ergonomics Forum (SEF) at the stunning Edinburgh control tower building (pictured left) on the 26th March. Kel Kirkland, NATS Edinburgh’s General Manager provided a fascinating overview of the Edinburgh operation, and a tour of their state-of-the-art control tower. The visit took place on a particularly windy afternoon, and we were very interested to hear that without the high technology damping systems in place within the building, controllers may have had to contend with the unpleasant symptoms of motion sickness!
SEF members admired the view from the visual control room at the top of the tower, where controllers ensure the safe and expeditious arrival and departure of flights to and from Edinburgh. We saw some of the equipment used in action, including ground movement radar and secondary surveillance radar, and gained a detailed understanding of the human factors issues that NATS takes into account when managing and planning day-to-day operations. These include work scheduling and shift patterns, readability of the radar displays, lighting (including minimising glare from the huge windows in the tower) and maintaining the highest levels of competency and emergency preparedness in their air traffic controllers.
NATS Edinburgh is soon to become the first Scottish air traffic control tower to benefit from the next generation of air traffic control technology: electronic flight progress strips (EFPS). Currently, Edinburgh controllers use paper flight progress strips which represent an aircraft’s flight plan in great detail, including planned speed, cruising height, destination and waypoints along the route. Controllers manually update these by writing down the instructions issued to aircraft when they are under their control, forming a legal documentary record of the flight. EFPS will provide the capability to do this via a digital representation of the flight strip displayed on a touch screen. Whereas at present information required by other airports, control centres, ground crew and the aircraft itself is passed by telephone, radio or by physically passing paper strips between controllers, EFPS will ensure that anyone affected by the changes made by the controller receives the necessary information electronically. This will yield significant benefits in terms of efficiency and safety, and controllers who have already made the transition at other NATS units have found the new technology invaluable. Training on the new technology will begin shortly, with the transition to the new technology occurring in 2010.

New members of the steering group
We are always looking for members to join the steering group to help agree and organise an interesting programme of events over the next year to stimulate interest in ergonomics in Scotland. There are a number of ideas already up for discussion, including visits to industrial sites, social evenings and visiting speakers. If you are interested in getting involved, please contact Richard Scaife.

Links
SEF is actively trying to forge links with other professional societies in Scotland, so if you know of other regional groups we should be talking to, please email us with their details. Groups and societies we are currently linked with:
Working Backs Scotland
Scottish branch of British Psychological Society
Scottish Usability Professionals' Association (SUPA)
POOSH (Professional Organisations in Occupational Safety and Health Scotland).
Division of Occupational Psychology (DOP) Scotland.