Phd monthly report march 2014

AFFECTIVE DISPOSITIONS WITHIN INTEGRATED PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PhD Monthly Report Student : Lawrence Farrugia Supervisor : Prof. Jonathan C. Borg Date: 31.03.2014

CONCURRENT ENGINEERING RESEARCH UNIT

Report Number

UNIVERSITY OF MALTA

EMPD – LF04/2014

PhD – March 2014

Table of Contents List of Figures ....................................................................................................................... 2 List of Tables ........................................................................................................................ 2 1

Introduction .................................................................................................................... 3

2

Product Design Dispsitions and Human Emotions ......................................................... 4

3

2.1

Customer Emotions in Product Design.................................................................... 4

2.2

Human Stress-Emotions ......................................................................................... 5

2.3

The Cost of Human Stress-Emotions ...................................................................... 6

A Model for Affective disposition wihtin integrated product development ........................ 7 3.1

Human Interaction with Natural and Artificial Life-Phase Systems .......................... 7

3.2

Research Limitation ................................................................................................ 8

3.3

Life-Phase Worker Stress-Emotions as a Consequence of IPD Dispositions ........ 11

4

Case Study – Worker Stress Emotions ........................................................................ 16

5

Discussion of results .................................................................................................... 17

6

Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 19 6.1

7

Future Work .......................................................................................................... 20

References .................................................................................................................. 20

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List of Figures Figure 1................................................................................................................................. 7 Figure 2................................................................................................................................. 8 Figure 3................................................................................................................................. 9 Figure 4................................................................................................................................. 9 Figure 5............................................................................................................................... 10 Figure 6............................................................................................................................... 11 Figure 7............................................................................................................................... 12 Figure 8............................................................................................................................... 13 Figure 9............................................................................................................................... 14 Figure 10............................................................................................................................. 15 Figure 11............................................................................................................................. 15 Figure 12............................................................................................................................. 16

List of Tables No table of figures entries found.

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1 Introduction A product is something that is sold by a firm to its customers. It follows that the term product development refers to a process which involves activities such as the perception of market opportunity, product design, production, sale and the delivery of the product [1]. Product development is an interdisciplinary activity which sees the participation of three central functions: marketing, design and production [1], [2]. The concept behind integrated product development is that to concurrently/simultaneously develop the artefact from a marketing, design and production perspective. The concurrent involvement of the three disciplines at every stage of the development process, enables the synthesis of products which can effectively fulfil cost, time and quality objectives [2].

An interesting perspective on product development is presented by Krishnan and Ulrich [3].

Upon reviewing over 200 papers concerning various aspects of product development, the authors [3] regard this process from a decision perspective. Following an exhaustive literature review, the authors note that a pattern emerged whereby what is being decided in the product development process remains fairly consistent across different case studies which were reviewed. The authors [3] identify two types of decisions related to product development, which are as follows: i. ii.

Decisions concerned with the development of the product itself. These decisions are related to the content of the product development process.

Decisions which are related with the setting up and planning of the product development project.

The field of research in design science is particularly familiar with the notion that early decisions commit between 60-80% [4], [5] of the total product costs. In addition to influencing the product cost, the early decisions of product design have a significant influence on the behaviour of the artefact throughout its various phases of its life-cycle as suggested by the concept of dispositions originally proposed by Olesen [6]. The concept of dispositions is described as: “By a disposition we understand that part of a decision taken within one functional area which affects the type, content, efficiency and progress of activities within other functional areas.�

This notion may be extended to include the decision made during the early stages of product development, where the consequences of such decisions are experienced by stakeholders who are within and outside the company. The research work presented in this paper is based on the theory of disposition [6]. This paper contributes through the definition of a model which describes the influence of decisions within the functional areas of product design, production and/or marketing, on those functional areas which involve human interactions as a result of the process pertaining to the elicitation of human stress emotions.

In other words, the process of human stress-emotions is being used to explain the influence of product development decisions on other functional areas which involve human life-phase workers who interact with other life-phase systems and/or the artefact.

The term life phase worker is used to refer to human stakeholders who interact with the artefact and other systems during life-cycle phases which precede and follow the use phase.

Life-phase workers are responsible for the execution of tasks such as the fabrication and Page 3 of 22

PhD – March 2014 assembly of the artefact during the use phase, the servicing of the artefact and the disposal of the product at the end of its life-cycle.

The subsequent section of the paper will explain why human emotions have gained particular attention in the field of product design. This section will also outline the process pertaining to the elicitation of human stress-emotions. Section 3 will then present the main contribution of this research which consists of an IPD model which encapsulates human emotions as part of the development process. Section 4 will then present the results obtained from a survey questionnaire which was conducted within a company. Section 5 will present a discussion of the results obtained followed in the next section by the conclusions derived from the research presented in this paper.

2 Product Design Dispsitions and Human Emotions This section will outline the ever-increasing importance that emotions particularly in product design. Section 2.1 will outline why and how emotions are being ‘built-in’ many consumer products. The following section 2.2, will then briefly outline the process through which human emotions are elicited. Finally section 2.3 will outline the costs associated with occupational stress.

2.1 Customer Emotions in Product Design In order for a developed product to be successful, it has to effectively fulfil the customer needs identified during the early stage of product development. For many years the success of the product development effort was measured in terms of the product cost, the product quality and the development time [1]. While these metrics are important, in 2001 Krishnan and Ulrich stated that: “We noted that there is essentially no academic research on industrial design, the activity largely concerned with the form and style of product. Yet aesthetic design may be one of the most important factors in explaining customer preference in some product markets, including automobiles, small appliances, and furniture.”

In recent years, research in design science has shown a keen interest in exploiting human emotions through product design.[7]–[10]. This has given rise to a new area of research in product design and human emotions. The reason behind this newly found interest is that it is no longer sufficient for a company to develop a product which is reasonably priced, of good quality and that effectively fulfils the customers’ needs. For a product to be successful it has to fulfil both the functional and supra-functional (affective) needs of the customers. The idea behind this new area of research in design science is that the desirable emotions can be elicited through the human-product interaction which takes place during the use phase.

While human emotions are typically elicited through one of the 5 human senses, Norman [11] argues that the emotions can be elicited not only on an aesthetic level but also at a higher visceral level. Thus a person might be attracted to a product, not because of its form, colours or smell but simply because it elicits keen memories of a relative or reminds the customer of a joyful experience.

Although the area of product design and emotion is relatively new, there is already a vast body of literature [7], [9], [10], [12]–[16] which reflects the ongoing research effort. In order to build emotionally appealing products researchers have exploited attributes such as texture Page 4 of 22

PhD – March 2014 [14], odours[13], [17] and form [12] to various degrees. It should be pointed out that it is not always the case that positive emotions are built into the product. As a matter of fact, Fokkinga and Desmet [10], [18], use negative emotions in order to create a rich product experience for the end-customer. In addition, Desmet [19] also contributed to the development of a concise yet practical list of emotion prototype to be used specifically by product designers. The idea behind the development of this list was that existing taxonomies were either too impractical or too concise to be used effectively.

The body of literature pertaining to design and emotions, presented so far clearly indicates the extent of research being carried out. A serious limitation of current research is that quite often product design research has been exclusively focused on the emotions elicited from the end customer who interacts with the product during the use phase. However the lifecycle of an artefact is constituted of multiple phases as suggested by Olesen[6]. It soon becomes evident that human product interactions may take place throughout other lifephases which precede and follow the use phase.

Life-cycle phases such as production, transport, servicing and disposal involve the human worker who interacts with the artefact and other life-phase systems. The ongoing research has already presented in a conference paper [20] which is currently under review. The objective of the paper is to model life-cycle interactions involving both the human worker and the end customer, who relate to the artefact and other life-phase systems across different phases in the life on an artefact.

Before proceeding any further with presenting the contribution of this paper, it would be worthwhile to focus on the process pertaining to the elicitation of human emotions. The next section will briefly outline the process through which human emotions are elicited.

2.2 Human Stress-Emotions It has only been in the last few decades that researchers, predominantly in the field of psychology have started to understand the rational process through which emotions are elicited. The word ‘rational’ must be emphasised due to the fact that for many years emotions were regarded as being irrational.

A widely accepted theory, which explains the process through which emotions are elicited is called appraisal theory as proposed by Richard Lazarus [21], [22] .The idea behind this theory is that the emotion is a result of very rational appraisals/evaluations. This notion has gained a wide acceptance among other prominent researchers in this field [23]–[26].For example Scherer [24] suggests a list of checks, called sequential appraisal checks (SAC).

These are basically a set of mental checks, which according the type and pattern of checks made a specific type of emotion is elicited.

Lazarus [21], [22] explains that there are two types of appraisals : primary and secondary.

The primary appraisal is an evaluation of the meaning/impact of the situation to one’s own concerns. According to Lazarus, a situation can be perceived as: irrelevant, benign or threatening. The secondary appraisal has to do with an assessment of one’s own coping resources. The elicitation of psychological stress-emotions is a result of a scenario where the demands from the situation e.g. high work overload, insufficient time to execute a task exceed the coping resources of the person.

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PhD – March 2014 The term stress-emotion was originally proposed by Lazarus [22] to emphasize the idea that stress and emotions should not be treated as separate from each other. In reality, emotions are only one manifestation of stress. In fact Lazarus [22] claims that the concepts of stress, emotions and coping together form one concept with emotions being the superordinate concept as it includes stress and coping. In essence the emotions tell us a ‘story’ as to whether a particular situation is appraised by the individual to be stressful and whether or not the individual is able to cope with the situation.

The effects of stress-emotions also manifest themselves on a physiological and behavioural level. Studies have shown that stress is directly related to cardio vascular disease and cancer [27]. In addition stress can result in a change in the behaviour of the person experiencing it. The physiological and behavioural effects of stress-emotions have become the centre of much attention particularly with regards to work-related stress emotions.

2.3 The Cost of Human Stress-Emotions Research into work related stress-emotions gained particular attention in recent years. The increase in attention is due to the fact that the experience of high levels of stress and the elicitation of stress-emotions can be a threat to both the individual’s wellbeing but also to the company itself. The study by Yang and Diefendorff [28] identified the experience of work related negative emotions to be directly related to counterproductive work behaviour (CWB) which can be directed towards the company or other workers within the company. The study

by Yang and Diefendorff [28] was in support of the theory proposed by Spector and Fox [29], which suggests that negative stress emotions elicited via environmental stimuli/stressors, render workers more susceptible to engage in counterproductive work behaviour (CWB).

The CWB is engaged towards the people and/or the organization with the intent to reduce the negative emotions. Other independent studies [30]–[34] have shown the negative influence that stressors, pertaining to the work environment, have on worker behaviour.

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work presented a report [35] which indicates among the financial cost of stress at work. The report points out that in 2005 stress was the second most frequent work-related problem which affects 22% of workers from the EU27. It also concludes that number of people suffering from stress-related conditions at work is set to increase. A study conducted in the Netherlands [35], [36] on the costs of work-related stress provides a very good breakdown of the costs which are incurred by a company as a results of work related stress. Such costs result from increased absenteeism, reduction in productivity, the cost of curative healthcare, administrative and judicial costs. Another study shows that in 2005/6 work-related stress, depression and anxiety cost Great Britain over 530 million British pounds [35], [37].The total working population in France [35], [38] in the year 2000 was 25.53 million. During that year between 220,500 and 335,000 (1% to 1.4%) people were effected directly by stress related illness.

This section has outlined the costs of work related stress-emotions. It should be evident that work related stress-emotions should be of concern not only to the individual experiencing high level of stress but also to the company employing the individuals. The experience of a high degree of work related stress can have serious ramifications on the health of the individual human worker. In addition the studies presented in this section indicate that there is a high financial burden which is directly associated to work related-stress. Alleviating the work-related stress through within an integrated product development approach should Page 6 of 22

PhD – March 2014 therefore be beneficial to the individual while at the same time enable the company to reach its cost, time and quality targets.

3 A Model for Affective disposition wihtin integrated product development As it has been stated earlier in the preceding section, human stress-emotions are the result of an appraisal of the interaction involving the human person with the situation. Research in product design and emotions has in so far only considered the emotions elicited from the customers who interact with the product during the use phase. However as it was pointed out earlier, human-product interaction should not be limited to the use phase. To this extent this section presents the main contribution of this paper through the description of a generalized model of integrated product development dispositions as an influence on human stress-emotions. In other words, the human stress-emotions elicited throughout various phases in the life-cycle of an artefact are regard to be the result of product development dispositions related to the functional areas of marketing, product design and production.

3.1 Human Interaction with Natural and Artificial Life-Phase Systems To this extent the research work has introduced the notion of life-cycle interactions for modelling human emotions. Throughout each phases in its life cycle, the artefact interacts with various artificial and natural life phase systems as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 In essence a life phase system X can be of two types: natural (X_N ) or artificial (X_A). The artefact in its various states, together with tools and machines used throughout various phases in the life on an artefact are all examples of artificial life phase systems (X _A), where X represents a particular life-phase. On the other hand the human life phase worker who interacts with the equipment, tools and performs work on the artefact together with the end customer who interacts with the finished artefact during the use phase, are all instances of the natural life phase system (X_N).

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3.2 Research Limitation The preceding has briefly shown that during each particular life-phase, the artefact changes from one state to another as a result of interactions with artificial and/or natural life phase systems. The research in this paper will be limited to the interactions which take place during the manufacturing life-phase of the artefact, as shown in Figure 2. The primary intended purpose of these interactions is to change the state of the artefact. Thus for example during this phase, the unperforated artefact interacts with the drill press. This interaction changes the state of the artefact from unperforated to perforated (unperforated ďƒ perforated).

However in addition to the change in the state of the artefact, this interaction produces a number of consequences. For instance the interaction depicted in Figure 2 occurs during the manufacturing life phase of the artefact. The interaction of the artefact with the manufacturing artificial life-phase systems results in the generation of noise and waste.

Figure 2 An additional consequence of the life-phase interaction that should be taken into consideration is the change in the affective state of the human worker who is involved in a particular life-phase interaction.

As stated earlier the integrated approach to product development involves three functional are which consist of marketing, product design and production shown in Figure 3. Decisions pertaining to each of these three main functional areas are concurrently made from one stage to another of the integrated product development process by stakeholders concerned with each functional area.

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Figure 3 Each decision has ramifications on both the artefact and/or other life phase systems. To this extent, this paper redefines the understanding of the production system, by dividing it into two categories: the artificial production system and the natural production system, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4 Page 9 of 22

PhD – March 2014 The term ‘artificial’ production system refers to elements such as machines and tools which have a physical state but no affective state. It should be pointed out that the artificial production system may be subdivided into two further categories: the productive and the auxiliary production system. The productive production system consists of the tools, machines and any other resources which alter one or multiple product properties, which include: form, material, dimensions, structure and surface. The auxiliary systems include those systems which don not directly alter one of the product properties, yet these system are necessary to support the altering of the product properties. Such auxiliary systems include: the physical building and infrastructure of the factory, information systems and other resources such as light sources. On the other hand the human worker forms part of the natural part of the production system.

Why is this differentiation important? The diagram in Figure 5, illustrates a key point which should not be overlooked. The key difference between artificial and natural life phase systems is that the latter has an additional state called an affective state. Unlike artificial life phase systems, human life-phase workers experience feeling and emotions. Unlike artificial life-phase systems such as a drill press, the interactions in which human workers are involved can result in the experience of stress and the elicitation of stress-emotions.

The artificial systems have only one type of state, and this is being called the non-affective state. This implies that a machine can be in different states which are non-affective, for example a machine could be operation or non-operational or working at a low or high production rate etc.

The term natural production system is the second type of production system which is used to include the human workers. Unlike the artificial production system, the elements which fall in this category have both a physical state but also an affective state. This means that apart from being operational or non-operational, the worker exists in a variety of affective states e.g. happy, angry, anxious or surprised.

Figure 5

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PhD – March 2014 The significance of this new perspective on the production system is that the decisions made during the early stages of the integrated product development process may have ramifications not only on the artificial elements such as machines and tools, but also on the affective state of the natural elements of the production system. It follows that the IPD stakeholders should take into consideration the consequences of their decisions in eliciting negative stress emotions from the human worker. As it has been stated earlier, this should be done not only for the sake of the worker’s wellbeing but also in an attempt to reduce the high financial costs associated with work-related stress emotions.

3.3 Life-Phase Worker Stress-Emotions as a Consequence of IPD Dispositions The concept of dispositions [6] stems from the idea that a disposition, which infers to a decision taken within one functional area (e.g. production) has consequences on other functional areas e.g. the product design as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6

It follows that a product development decision which might seem beneficial in one functional area, might have significant unforeseen and unintended ramifications in another area.

Integrated product development attempts to mitigate this problem through its concurrency.

One definition of concurrent engineering is [39]: “Concurrent Engineering is a systematic approach to the integrated concurrent design of products and their processes, including manufacturing and support. This approach is intended to cause the developers from the outset, to consider all elements of the product lifePage 11 of 22

PhD – March 2014 cycle from concept through disposal, including quality, cost, schedule and user requirements.�

Thus by having actors from the three disciplines of marketing, production and product design working in parallel, it is possible to reduce the impact of unintended consequences on other functions which take place throughout the entire life-cycle of the artefact. The research in this paper, presents the idea, through the adaptation of the concept of dispositions, where one such consequences of an early product development decision is the elicitation of negative stress-emotions. This adaptation of the original concept is shown in Figure 7. It should be noted that this model applies to all phases in the life of an artefact, including the manufacturing phase.

The illustration in Figure 7, shows that integrated product development is constituted of three main functional areas. The term affective dispositions refer to those decisions (or part of) taken within marketing, product design and/or production, which influence the emotional states of workers within other functional areas. These functional areas which may be found across different life-phases X, may involve either the worker or the end customer.

Throughout each functional area emotions are elicited via the interaction of the human being (worker or customer) with a natural and/or artificial life phase systems.

Figure 7

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PhD – March 2014 For example the decision by a production team to change the layout of the factory in order to maximise space utilisation may result in the unintended consequence of longer lead time. In turn this could influence the marketing area, who face a high demand for the artefact which cannot be met. In a similar manner the design decision to use 3 rather then 4 screws may influence the production team who must alter existing jigs and tools. In essence the IPD model is a way of exercising concurrency, through which commitments are made in a proactive manner to minimize unforeseen consequences.

In order to understand the decisions which influence the affective state of the human workers, a bottom up approach will be assumed. The idea is to first understand the type of relationships with which the human worker is involved. In essence the human worker in the context of a manufacturing environment is involved in at least one of four relationships.

These relationships are: (i) relationship with the artefact, (ii) relationship with productive production systems, (iii) relationships with auxiliary production systems and finally relationships with (iv)other natural systems as illustrated in Figure 8.

Figure 8 The relationship with the artefact involves the human worker who interacts in a direct manner with the artefact. The properties of the artefact, which are committed as a direct result of the design activity, may influence the affective state of the worker. Thus among other things the design activity should take into consideration the impact which design decisions have on the affective state of such workers.

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PhD – March 2014 Another interaction which could potentially alter the affective state of the worker is the relationship between the worker and the production systems. Analogous to the artefact, the change in the affective state is influence by the properties of and the type of production system. Such decisions pertaining to the type and attributes of the production system may be indirectly determined by design decisions or in some cases by the production system manager.

For example, the design team may decide (within an IPD context) to change the hole profile from square to circular in order to facilitate the assembly process as shown in Figure 9. This decision has direct consequences on the production system, which may require for new fabrication equipment to be acquired. In order to cut costs, the production system manager may decide to buy the least expensive tools. However an unforeseen consequence of this decision is that these tools are extremely unreliable. By considering the affective state of the worker as a new element, the unreliability of the machines does not only increase the lead time. This decision could also result in significant stress-related costs due to a change in the affective state of the operators in the fabrication department. Such stress-related costs could be attributed due to a loss in focus, higher rejection rate and increase in absenteeism.

Figure 9 In a similar scenario, the production manager may decide to maximise the layout of the factory floor by bringing the machines nearer to the operators. This decision results in excessive and repetitive ambient noises, which change the affective state of the worker to worse as shown in Figure 10.

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Figure 10 As it was pointed out earlier, the production system consist of the productive and auxiliary elements. The choice of auxiliary systems may be determined by both the production and design teams. For example the design team may change the material of two components from PV to ABS as shown in Figure 11. This change however requires the use of a solvent which must be kept refrigerated at -20C. This clearly necessitates a change in the physical work environment. Such a harsh environment will certainly not be enjoyed by many workers.

Figure 11 Page 15 of 22

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4 Case Study – Worker Stress Emotions A preliminary survey questionnaire in the format of semi-structured interviews was carried out within local industry. This study saw the participation of human workers who interact in a direct manner with the artefact or some other artificial system such as fabrication and assembly equipment. A template of the survey questionnaire may be found in Appendix A. Throughout the survey questionnaire, the participants were asked to rank their concerns from a list of eight statements, according to their relative importance. It should be pointed out that all (100%) of the participants ranked their health and the safety of the work environment as the most important concern. The second and third most highly ranked concerns were, making sure that the work executed is of good quality and having the right tools and resources necessary to execute the expected tasks. This indicates that while workers in this particular firm do care about the quality of the work they execute, in reality they are often concerned with not having the right tools and resources necessary to execute their work correctly. Following these statements, the appearance and comfort of the work environment obtained an average rank of four. In the fifth rank the participants stated that their concern is to minimize the work overload on themselves and their colleagues. The other concerns which were considered to be the least important were : spending as much time as possible away from work, being very productive even if a t the cost of poor quality and building strong relationships with work colleagues. A summary of the results related the concerns of the interviewees are illustrated in Figure 12.

Figure 12 The responses of the interviewees to this question, provide us with a hierarchy of concerns with the most primary/basic concerns up to the less important once. The literature pertaining to stress and emotions suggests that, a stress-emotion is elicited whenever the concerns of the human being are threatened or challenged. This hierarchy provides us with a generalized hierarchy of concerns and thus potential stressors. This means that a situational Page 16 of 22

PhD – March 2014 stressor which threatens the worker’s health is more likely to elicit strong negative emotions when compared to a stressor which is related to the relationship between co-workers.

Throughout the semi-structured interview, the participants were asked to rate on a five point Likert scale, the extent to which various factors pertaining to the task or process for which they are responsible, contribute in eliciting negative stress-emotions. The overall reliability of the machine or tool being used obtained the highest mean rating of 4.67 [st.deviation 0.7071]. This process attribute was followed by the excessive noise resulting from the operation of the machines, which obtained an average score of 4.44 [st.deviation 0.7265].

Other factors pertaining to the process which were considered to have a significant influence of the worker affect were the excessive complexity of the machine/tool [mean rating 4.33, st.deviation 0.8660] and the lack of ergonomic work station [mean rating 4.22, st.deviation 0.667].

Another question which was presented to the participants was aimed at identifying the extent to which various artefact (object of work) attributes elicit negative stress emotions. The complexity of the product [mean rating 3.78, st.deviation 0.9718] and the skills required to perform work on the artefact [mean rating 3.78, st.deviation 0.9718] were considered to be the most effective in eliciting undesirable emotions. In addition the odours emanating from the components as a result of the use of solvents [mean rating 3.67, st.deviation 0.5000] were also considered to have a significant influence on the affective state of the subjects interviewed.

Apart from the product and the tools/resources, the worker also interacts with the environment. Throughout the semi-structured interviews the participants were also asked to assess the extent to which various attributes related to the work environment contributed in eliciting negative stress emotions. The inadequacy of the spatial layout (i.e. the lack of space and the way in which the work environment is laid out), was considered was rated as the most effective [mean rating 4.78, st.deviation 0.4410] in eliciting negative stress emotions.

This attribute was closely followed by factors such as inadequate lighting conditions [mean rating 4.67, st.deviation 0.5000], inadequate ambient temperature [mean rating 4.67, st.deviation 0.7071]. Apart from the physical attributes of the work environment there was also an organizational aspect which was considered to contribute significantly in eliciting negative stress emotions. This organizational aspect is related to the lack of participation in decision making, which also obtained a mean rating of 4.67 [st.deviation 0.5000].

At the end of the semi-structured interview, the participants were asked to rate the extent to which they subjectively consider their personal experience of work-related stress to influence their productivity and the quality of the work which is produced. The responses from the questionnaire indicate that the workers consider the experience of elevated work-related stress to have a significant impact [mean rating 4.00, st.deviation 0.5000] on their productivity, while a slightly less significant impact [mean 3.56, st.deviation 0.5270] on the quality of their work.

5 Discussion of results The survey questionnaire contributes to the identification of a hierarchy of worker concerns.

This hierarchy could be used in order to identify the most relevant stressors in a workenvironment. The workers’ health and the safety of the work environment was ranked as the Page 17 of 22

PhD – March 2014 most important concerns by the interviewees. It follows that any immediate threat to this concern will elicit strong negative stress-emotions from the workers. On the contrary, an argument with work colleagues does not elicit such strong negative stress emotions, in fact during the interview the some of the participants stated that having arguments with coworkers is accepted as part of the job.

A secondary concern for the interviewees was related to being provided with the right tools and resources. This concern was somehow reflected in the responses to the second question, in which the overall reliability of the machine/tool being used was considered to be the most relevant attribute in eliciting negative stress-emotions. In addition the noises emanating from the machines and tools together with the ergonomics of the workstation were considered to have a significant influence on the affective state of the worker. All of these attributes are the results of decisions made early during the IPD process. The results from this preliminary study indicate that the IPD process, within this particular company, does not take into account the affective state of the human worker. Thus while a particular machine may be selected because of a low capital investment, in reality there is an unforeseen consequence of the affective state of the worker who has to operate in the vicinity of a noisy machine. In a similar fashion, the IPD stakeholders may be tempted to invest very little in a workstation which adapts to the physical ergonomic requirements of different workers. Yet the lack of ergonomic workstations was a factor stress inducing factor rated very highly. A case in point which was mentioned by one of the interviewees was a packaging machine which could be easily operated by right-handed people. The interviewee pointed out that she was right handed and had great difficulty operating such a machine. It seems only fair to state that in buying this machine, there was no or very little consideration of the human factor A very important set of decisions in the IPD process are related directly to the design of the artefact. The interviewees who participated in this stated that the complexity and the odours emanating from the product elicited significant stress-emotions. The subjects pointed out that the odours were a direct consequence of the use of solvents used to assemble components together. From an a product-design perspective the decision to use a particular type of solvent which provides the necessary bond strength has had the unforeseen consequence of eliciting negative emotions from the operators who use the chemical to bond components with each other. In a similar fashion, the overall complexity of the artefact could be reduced through re-design by eliminating the number of individual components or automating some part of the assembly process. Both of these consequences could have been foreseen during the early stages of product development, if only the human stressemotions of workers were taken into account.

As it has been stated earlier, the IPD process may be viewed as a decision making process.

To this extent the involvement of human workers could enable the stakeholders to identify potential unforeseen consequences of worker stress-emotions. It should be pointed out the lack of involvement of the interviewed subjects in decision-making was also considered to elicit negative emotions. Some of the decisions which could have been foreseen from the design and production side to induce worker stress were the presence of inadequate temperatures and the inadequate spatial layout of the factory floor. Thus for example, when setting up the layout of the factory floor the production stakeholders should also ensure that Page 18 of 22

PhD – March 2014 the workers who are required to operate within the factory have adequate space to perform their respective task.

A hypothesis of this research is that not considering the worker stress-emotions during the IPD decision making process, entails costs in terms of a decrease in productivity and product quality. In this survey questionnaire the subjects rated the elicitation of negative stress emotions to have a significant influence on both productivity and product quality. The costs associated with a decreased in the level of productivity and quality can be reduced if not eliminated, by taking into consideration the consequences on the worker affective state which results from decisions related to the market, production and design.

6 Conclusion Following the literature review of IPD model and human stress-emotions, this paper presents a new concept linking the stress-emotions elicited from human life-phase workers to the decisions taken during the various stages of the IPD process.

The research stems from the idea that: 1. For many years a lot of research has been focused on exploiting the emotions of the end customers, which are elicited during the use phase. The presented literature review suggests that there is very little research which links product development activities to the emotions elicited from human workers.

2. The IPD process may be viewed as a series of decisions, involving marketing, design and production. Existing research on IPD has very frequently taken into consideration, in an exclusive manner, the artificial systems who are involved at the end of the development process, throughout fabrication and assembly. Yet, the development process is also made up of people, who unlike artificial systems, have an affective state which if altered can result in significant stress-related costs.

The research presented in this paper presented the concept of affective dispositions which refers to the notion that product development decisions have in part, an influence on the affective state of life-phase workers. The model present has been limited to the manufacturing phase in the life of the artefact. Yet the literature review in this paper has shown, that IPD related decisions very often take exclusive consideration of the artificial lifephase systems with a complete disregard to the affective state of the human worker.

The idea that IPD decision makers should be able to foresee the consequences of their decisions not only on the artificial, but also on the natural systems such as the affective state of the human workers has been demonstrated through a preliminary case study. This case study shows that the various sources of stress (stressors) in the workplace are in fact a consequence of the decisions made during the IPD process. Thus for example, the odours emanating from the artefact as a direct cause of the type of solvents used, was considered to be a work related stressor. The decision as to the type of bonding solvent is clearly a decision which takes place during the IPD process, particularly from the design discipline. In a similar fashion, the excessive noise emanating from the machines being used may be considered as an unforeseen consequence in the selection of particular equipment.

It may therefore be concluded that current IPD processes are not currently taking into consideration the consequential impact which decisions have on the affective state of the Page 19 of 22

PhD – March 2014 human worker. The consideration of the human stress-emotion is not only beneficial to the well-being of the individual but also to the well-being of the company. This is due to the fact that existing studies have shown the high hidden costs of work-related stress. In fact the preliminary survey has also illustrated that work-related stress tends to result in a decrease in the productivity and the quality of work produced.

6.1 Future Work Due to the limited sample size of the preliminary survey questionnaire, one of the objectives of the research in the near future will be to extend this questionnaire among different companies. This will be carried out in order to obtain a broader picture of the main stressors at work and their sources during the IPD process.

In addition, the long term goal of this research will be to develop a design support means, with the intent of enabling designers to foresee the human consequences of the product development decision making process. This would contribute to the creation of factories which are competitive without being detrimental to the psychological well-being of the human worker.

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