Operator Consoles and Ergonomics

A console is bought once and sat at for eight hours a day, ten years running.

It is the longest-lived item in the room and the one most often specified from a catalogue photograph. The cost of getting it wrong shows up as fatigue, and fatigue is measured in error rate and response time on a night shift.

Ask SECCOM to measure the real seated and standing dimensions of the operators who will use the room. Most consoles are specified from a catalogue. Very few are specified from the people.

What you get. A console specification with sit-stand travel stated in millimetres, primary monitors at eye level and 50 to 75 cm from the operator's eyes, a reach envelope covering every control used during an incident without the operator leaving the seat, and an ambient noise target stated in dB(A). Glare is handled as a measured screen luminance against the room's measured illuminance, not as a blind on a window.

Where SECCOM stops. Occupational health assessment and any individual medical adjustment belong to the employer and its occupational health provider. SECCOM specifies to the measured range of the people who will sit there and states the range it designed to.