Prof. Ari opened her scientific oration by explaining the definition of Industrial Engineering, which is a scientific field that focuses on the processes of design, repair, and installation of integrated systems. One of the pillars of industrial engineering is ergonomics, which is often called the human factor.

Ergonomics is one of the most crucial pillars in industrial engineering. The definition of ergonomics is a scientific discipline that focuses on human’s abilities and limitations and its utilization in the design process. The objective of ergonomics is to increase productivity and performance.

In her explanation, Prof. Ari conveyed the three pillars of ergonomics as quoted from Ergonomic Association: physical ergonomics (PE), cognitive ergonomics (CE), and organizational ergonomics (OE). The slice of those three pillars illustrate the physical and nonphysical aspects of ergonomics. The pillar that will be further discussed by Prof. Ari was cognitive ergonomics (CE).

Prof. Ari then explained the definition of workload, which is the difference between task demand and cognitive/mental capacity. There are two scenarios when task demand is greater or smaller than cognitive/mental capacity. When task demand is greater, then there will be an overload which can trigger error or even work accident. However, when it is smaller it does not always guarantee a safer condition. In the long term, this scenario can cause boredom and even decrease work performance.

Moreover, gadgets force humans to receive a lot of information. This becomes a challenge for engineers when designing a system. “From gadgets we need to know how much information that we receive, remember, and process. This becomes a challenge when designing an interface that can be easily understood so that primary information can be received,” explained Prof. Ari in her oration.

Prof. Ari then explained perception as cognitive function and its implementations in industry. She gave an illustration on usability engineering when designing a product so that it can match the user's perception. Perception aspect in cognitive function requires engineers to understand what is inside someone’s mind when using the product.

Prof. Ari then explained the implementation of cognitive function in the attention aspect. As an example, Prof. Ari presented two cases on transportation safety, mobile phone usage when driving and memory load from an Air Traffic Controller (ATC) worker. Prof. Ari with a team of students carried out research to measure brainwave as a way to detect decreases in attention on ridesharing drivers when using navigation applications in mobile phones.

The research results show an insignificant decrease in attention when the usage of mobile phones is only limited to navigation. However, if the driver is on call or texting, the decrease in attention will be much more significant.

Prof. Ari also said that she often held discussions and cooperations with parties from the Department of Psychology. Quoting the Theory of Reasoned Action which was developed by Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen in 1975, cognitive will impact affection and desire to do something. Not only that, cognitive will also impact conative attitude and behavior. “Thus, cognitive will impact behavior,” explained Prof. Ari.

During the pandemic, bachelor students who were supervised by Prof. Ari carried out research on the utilization of Virtual Reality (VR) for virtual vacation. Through the experience that it provides, VR can facilitate recreational activities through virtual tourism. This research was done in Indonesia National Museum and produced a promising result. Prof. Ari said that this research will be further developed for the sake of education and other related fields.

Prof. Ari was born in Kediri on 13 June 1976. She is a member of the Ergonomics, Work Engineering, and Work Safety Research Group from the Faculty of Industrial Technology (FIT) ITB. Prof. Ari was given the Professor title at ITB on 1 July 2022.

She finished her bachelor education in Industrial Engineering ITB with a Cum Laude predicate in 1998 and gained Master of Engineering degree in ITB in 2021. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Groningen, Netherlands, in 2013. In 1999 Prof. Ari became an Educational Staff at the Industrial Engineering Study Program ITB and became the Vice Dean of Resource FTI ITB in 2020.

Not only that, but Prof. Ari is also active in various research on cognitive ergonomic and usability engineering. Prof. Ari is also working on grant research from the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture. Until now, Prof. Ari has published 67 articles on Scopus-indexed journals/proceedings and has an H index of 10.

Reporter: Hanan Fadhilah Ramadhani (Civil Engineering, 2019)
Translator: Favian Aldilla R (Civil Engineering, 2019)