LEVENT ÇALGAR BIOGRAPHY

Levent Çaglar
MSc Ergonomics, BSc Engineering
Senior Ergonomist at FIRA International

Having completed his BSc in Mechanical Engineering, he joined University College London where he studied for the Masters degree in Ergonomics. He is a Registered Member of the Ergonomics Society.

He has been practising ergonomics for over 15 years. Currently, he runs the Ergonomics Unit at FIRA. He has previously worked as an Ergonomist at the Post Office Research Centre. Much of his recent work has been in the areas of health and safety ergonomics, office ergonomics, ergonomics input to furniture design, risk assessment of VDU workstations and risk assessment of manual handling operations, in particular their effect on people’s backs.

He is an expert on the European Directives and UK legislation concerning health and safety ergonomics. He is also the Principal UK ergonomics expert on European (CEN) and international (ISO) standards committees, , which are responsible for producing ergonomics standards for educational, office, contract and domestic furniture. He is the convenor of the European committee for furniture for educational institutions.

He provides ergonomics input into the design, development and assessment of furniture from concept to final product stage. Examples include collaboration with two major USA chair manufacturers to design new office chairs (Aeron chair for Herman Miller and the Please chair for Steelcase), and collaboration with UK, Danish and USA desking companies for the design of new workstations and desks.

He produces Furniture Ergonomics specifications for furniture for facilities managers and furniture purchasers, which include BAA, Metropolitan Police and various banks and financial institutions.
He carries out Ergonomics assessment and certification of office furniture for compliance with standards for most UK, and major European and USA, manufacturers. He has developed the FIRA Ergonomics Excellence Awards, , which is awarded to products,, which excel in ergonomics as well as being safe and comfortable for the users. Companies who achieved the award are ecologically responsible and manufacture under recognised quality systems.

He has carried out many risk assessments for VDU workstations in offices, dealing rooms, control rooms and workplaces. He is known for producing effective and practical ergonomics solutions for the elimination or reduction of the risks he identifies, in terms of equipment and task redesign or modification.

He has carried out risk assessment of existing counters and work systems for UK banks and building societies. Working in an interdisciplinary team with designers, architects, health and safety officers and facilities managers to modify existing counters and design new counters and systems for nationwide installation for Abbey National, NatWest, Cheltenham and Gloucester and HSBC/Midland Bank.

He has recently completed the research on the sizes of children. He has found that children are still getting larger at a rate of 1cm per decade. He has produced new set of anthropometric data for the British children. He has undertaken many studies for the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE). The results of these studies have been used by the DfEE for the production of their guidelines on the use and purchase of school furniture.

He regularly writes articles on ergonomics of furniture. He has concentrated on issues affecting the users, their health and comfort and also on design issues and guidelines for designers.

His other activities include:
Ergonomics assessment of furniture and ancillary equipment for fitness for purpose,
Lectures and seminars on complying with directives, legislation and standards, on office ergonomics and on ergonomics aspects of health and safety, design of furniture,
Expert witness in litigation cases on ergonomics of furniture and health & safety.