Structural model for the effects of environmental elements on the psychological characteristics and performance of the employees of manufacturing systems

This paper analyzes the effects of environmental elements on the psychological characteristics and performance of employees in manufacturing systems using structural equation modeling. Increasing the comprehension of these effects may help optimize manufacturing systems regarding their employees psychological characteristics and performance from a macroergonomic perspective. As the method, a new macroergonomic compatibility questionnaire (MCQ) was developed and statistically validated, and 158 respondents at four manufacture companies were considered. Noise, lighting and temperature, humidity and air quality (THAQ) were used as independent variables and psychological characteristics and employees performance as dependent variables. To propose and test the hypothetical causal model of significant relationships among the variables, a data analysis was deployed. Results found that the macroergonomic compatibility of environmental elements presents significant direct effects on employees psychological characteristics and either direct or indirect effects on the employees performance. THAQ had the highest direct and total effects on psychological characteristics. Regarding the direct and total effects on employees performance, the psychological characteristics presented the highest effects, followed by THAQ conditions. These results may help measure and optimize manufacturing systems performance by enhancing their macroergonomic compatibility and quality of life at work of the employees. © 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland