Instead of joining both ergonomic work analysis (EWA) (from the French ergonomics view) and organisational design (OD) approaches, this paper argues that those disciplines are competing for the same object -the organisation of work (in a wider sense). Regarding both practical and theoretical problems emerged from the organisation of work, EWA developed the activity standpoint (AS). The AS looks for allocate priorities to the interrelations among producers performing their daily tasks. Producers, in turn, can be located at any point of the organisational structure. Accepting that work is socially organised, AS constitute a specific logic to help to co-ordinate relationships among social subjects (producers), who build their own norms, frames of action and co-operation criterion. The activity logic allows building a real autonomy of producers, who are continually re-inventing their formal rules of work organisation. This allows to be closer to the idea of an 'actual organisation' which seems to be more adequate to the technical demands of the productive system, individual inter-individual regulation of workload.
ergonomics work analysis; work organisation; real organisation; activity standpoint