Human variation and designing

The economic growth and technological improvements have led to greater demand and development of machines and devices. Designs that once suited the western populations have been followed in India despite of the fact that there is considerable difference between the anthropometric data of Indians and westerners. Therefore there is a great need to generate an anthropometric data bank for different regions of Indian population in order to let the ergonomists develop user-friendly man-machine systems. The population and gender differences found in the anthropometric dimensions of the two population groups under study emphasize the usefulness of this study in the context of design of equipments, products and agricultural tools/ machinery used in India which is based on body dimensions of foreign workers. It will help the designers to develop and introduce machines suiting to the requirements of the population so that human drudgery in operation could be minimized and operator's comfort could be enhanced.