Book excerpt: The experience of the past decade since the publication of the first edition of The Rules of Work: A Practical Engineering Guide to Ergonomics proves just how central ergonomics is for effective production. Revised and updated to reflect new insights from workplace developments, the second edition continues the tradition of providing essential tools for implementing good ergonomics in a way that simultaneously improves both productivity and safety. What’s New in the Second Edition: Updated examples and additional rules of thumb "How to" pages cover actions such as how to design a workstation Coverage of RULA, Strain Index, and TAPDA In short, the plan of the book is that Part I provides help on how to think and Part II help on how to measure. The non-quantitative materials come first, since creativity in the application of the principles and rules provides greater value. Based on 35 years of practical problem-solving in over 1,500 workplaces, the book provides a down-to-earth and practical guide for solving ergonomics problems. It provides a framework for evaluating tasks using low-tech, non-quantitative methods, along with an overview of the standard measuring systems for those occasions when numbers are needed.