Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 6.6
Bin-assembly
compatibility for the assembly of car
brakes, as used at General Motors,
Saginaw Division, Buffalo, NY, U.S.
For example, in the assembly of car brakes (Figure 6.6) there is a one-to-one
correspondence between the location of parts in the bins and the corresponding location
of parts in the assembly. Such bin-assembly compatibility reduces assembly time
(Helander and Waris, 1993). Similar principles apply to the design of controls and
displays for process control—the controls and displays must be lined up to be compatible.
EXAMPLE: POOR CONTROL-RESPONSE COMPATIBILITY
A few years ago I inspected the control design of a fighter aircraft. It had two major
controls: the left hand was on the throttle, which had 21 control functions, and the right
hand on the stick, which had 18 control functions. This is a design concept called
HOTAS—hands on throttle and stick. The pilot keeps his hands on the two controls all
the time, and all functions are accessible from the two controls. This is not an easy task to
learn, and there are probably better design options.
In one aircraft I inspected, the direction of movement of the cursor control for
selection of objects on the display screen was incompatible with the movement of the
cursor on the screen. If you moved the control to the left, the screen cursor moved up.
Move the control down and the screen cursor moves to the left, and so forth. Despite
pointing it out to the military personnel, the attitude was that training will take care of the
problem. It may be so, but at what cost?
