FOCUS:  Human System Engineering improves the overall system performance by including human capabilities and limitations into the system architecture and design.

While many systems engineers understand that the human operator and maintainer are part of the system, they often lack the expertise or information needed to fully specify and incorporate human capabilities into the system design (INCOSE , 2011).

BACKGROUND:

Human System Engineering applies what is known about the human to the design of systems. Human elements possess knowledge, skills, and abilities that must be accounted for in system design, along with their physical characteristics and constraints, similar to other technical elements of the system. The inclusion of the human in the design stage is essential to insure efficient processes and data exchange between the technology elements and the human users. Human System Engineering specializes in the interactions between humans, humans with systems, and with automation.  The primary goal is to identify the requirements of the human component in order to optimize the performance of the overall system.

The Human Viewpoint is an additional architecture viewpoint developed by a NATO panel to augment existing frameworks with human-system information. It provides Human System Engineers a tool to organize information into a framework about how the human “fits” in the system. It  provides  a set of models which captures information on human capabilities, constraints, tasks, roles, networks, training, and metrics.  Including the human in the architecture framework ensures the human is considered in the total system design and provides a common representation to communicate with other disciplines during system development to support design decisions.

Human-System performance evaluations use the human focused data in simulations that predict the performance of humans interacting with the system in specific work environments. Dynamic simulations can show the effect of high workload, poor training, and inadequate communications on system performance. Additionally, Human System Engineering supports the Model Based System Engineering (MBSE) approach.

RESEARCH AREA CAPABILITIES:

  • Human System Engineering to identify human components, relationships, context and principles.
  • Human Architecting to capture human focused data in a framework to support stakeholder decisions.
  • Human-System performance evaluations using simulation models such as IMPRINT and C3TRACE.

INTRODUCTORY REFERENCES:

  • Handley, H. & Tolk, A. (2020). A Framework for Human System Engineering Applications and Case Studies. IEEE Press.
  • Handley, H (2019). The Human Viewpoint for Systems Architectures. Springer.
  • Handley, H.A.H. (2016). A Design Methodology for Fit-for-Purpose Human Views, Systems Engineering, 19(6) pp. 498-509.
  • Handley, H., Amissah, M., Heimerdinger, D., & Vance, E. (2016). Non legacy viewpoint for DoDAF system of systems architecture, Journal of Defense Modeling & Simulation: Applications, Methodology, Technology, 13(4), 415-429.
  • Handley, H. & Knapp, B. (2014). Where are the People? The Human View Approach for Architecting and Acquisition, Defense Acquisition Research Journal, 21(4), 851-874.
  • Handley, H.A.H. (2013). A Network Model for Human Interoperability, Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 56(2), 349-360.
  • Handley, H.A.H. (2012). Incorporating The NATO Human View in the DoDAF 2.0 Meta Model, Systems Engineering, 15(1),108-117.

EMAIL:  hsel@odu.edu