| Community Ergonomics (CE) is a design practice and methodology for applying industrial engineering to dysfunctional community settings. Poverty, isolation, dependency and low levels of self-regulation and control are characteristic of inner city communities. The practice of CE defines a community environment interface design strategy and implementation process which achieves compatibility between people and the environments supplying their needs and resources.;CE, as a theory and practice, is built upon theoretical foundations of industrial engineering (including human factors and ergonomics), behavioral cybernetics, and Breakthrough Thinking;The operational requirements of decision and action systems resulting from the CE process are specified, produced, and measured during the planning and design activities. The Community Ergonomist, leading the process, is a trained interface professional, capable of engineering and managing complex systems of people, information, organizations, and environmental dynamics required to establish social tracking bonds and feedback control loops within the planning group structure. Observations and notes by the CE team, interviews of the process participants (Partners), and documents generated as progressive outputs throughout the process constitute a rich and descriptive data base. These three key sources of information constitute the basis for measuring the effectiveness of the process and the ultimate product or solution.;This study demonstrates engineering, management, and evaluation of the CE process within a community environment context. The process resulted in the organization of the Milwaukee Community Investment Partnership (MCIP) and the implementation of the Milwaukee Community Investment Bank as interface institutions to increase access to credit and capital for the inner city communities of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.;The results indicate that the critical success factors of the CE process (the group composition of the Partnership, the expertise of the CE team, and the process itself) are measurable and predictable such that operational requirements of a community improvement project may be specified a priori. The results in Milwaukee show that the process was effective in promoting self regulation of the MCIP Partners and achievement of a planned result. |
