Designing decision support in an evolving sociotechnical enterprise

Modern manufacturing facilities are subject to organisational, technological, engineering and market constraints. The combination of these factors allows them to be described as sociotechnical enterprises. Control of these enterprises is distributed between human and automated agents who collaborate as part of a joint cognitive system. One of the challenges facing these industries is a need to evolve operations while maintaining stable performance. Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) provides a range of analytical frameworks that can be used to study the effects of change on sociotechnical systems. However, the scale of these enterprises and the range of decision-making styles involved make the selection of an appropriate framework difficult. A critical review of both positivist and hermeneutic approaches to cognitive systems research is provided. Following this a cognitive engineering process is outlined that uses a mixed model approach to describe system functionality, understand the implications of change and inform the design of cognitive artefacts that support system control. A case study examines the introduction of pervasive automation in the semiconductor manufacturing industry and is used to demonstrate the utility of this process.     

Contributions from cognitive engineering to requirements specifications for complex sociotechnical systems: A case study in the context of healthcare in Brazil

This paper aims at presenting a case study on the use of human factors and ergonomics to enhance requirement specifications for complex sociotechnical system support tools through enhancing the understanding of human performance within the business domain and the indication of high‐value requirements candidates to information technology support. This work uses methods based on cognitive engineering to build representations of the business domain, highlighting workers’ needs, and contributing to the improvement of software requirements specifications, used in the healthcare domain. As the human factors discipline fits between human sciences and technology design, we believe that its concepts can be combined with software engineering to improve understanding of how people work, enabling the design of better information technology.     

Designing for self-organisation in sociotechnical systems: resilience engineering,cognitive work analysis,and the diagram of work organisation possibilities

In designing sociotechnical systems, accounting for the phenomenon of self-organisation is critical. Empirical studies show that workers in these systems adapt not just their individual behaviours, but also their collective structures to deal with complex work environments. The concept of self-organisation can explain how such adaptations can be achieved spontaneously, continuously, and relatively seamlessly, and why this phenomenon is important for dealing with instability, uncertainty, and unpredictability in the task demands. However, existing design approaches such as resilience engineering and cognitive work analysis are limited in their capacity to design for self-organisation. This paper demonstrates that the diagram of work organisation possibilities, a recent addition to cognitive work analysis, provides a sound theoretical basis for designing for self-organisation. That is, it shows how essential components of the diagram are aligned with the concept of self-organisation and are well-grounded in empirical observations of adaptation in a variety of sociotechnical systems, specifically emergency management, military, and healthcare systems. Consequently, designs based on this diagram should have the potential to facilitate the emergence of new spatial, temporal, and functional organisational structures from the flexible actions of individual, interacting actors, thereby enhancing a system’s capacity for dealing with a dynamic, ambiguous work environment. Future research should focus on validating these ideas and demonstrating their value in industrial settings.

     

Enhancing industrial performance: experiences of integrating the human factor

Abstract

Enhancing Industrial Performance refers to the case book that focuses on the effective implementation of sociotechnical innovation, describing real experiences with the management of the human-computer interface. It argues for an ergonomic approach to systems design and evaluation; human factors audits in systems prototyping; user participation in the design process; human-centred organizational design; and matching human resources with technological investment. In the paper, four case studies out of 15 are briefly described. It is stressed that the human-oriented design approach should be integrated in a company-wide manufacturing excellence programme. Finally, industry as well as universities need case studies.     

Socio-technical systems: From design methods to systems engineering

It is widely acknowledged that adopting a socio-technical approach to system development leads to systems that are more acceptable to end users and deliver better value to stakeholders. Despite this, such approaches are not widely practised. We analyse the reasons for this, highlighting some of the problems with the better known socio-technical design methods. Based on this analysis we propose a new pragmatic framework for socio-technical systems engineering (STSE) which builds on the (largely independent) research of groups investigating work design, information systems, computer-supported cooperative work, and cognitive systems engineering. STSE bridges the traditional gap between organisational change and system development using two main types of activity: sensitisation and awareness; and constructive engagement. From the framework, we identify an initial set of interdisciplinary research problems that address how to apply socio-technical approaches in a cost-effective way, and how to facilitate the integration of STSE with existing systems and software engineering approaches.     

Forklift safety, traffic engineering and intelligent transport systems: a case study

This paper details a forklift safety demonstration project undertaken at two manufacturing sites in Victoria, Australia. The purpose of the work was both to help improve safety at the two sites, and, more broadly, to develop, help implement and evaluate a series of human-centred design interventions involving vehicles and pedestrian workers. The ‘before’ and ‘after’ case study presented here summarises the background to the research and introduces the test sites. Thereafter, it describes the overall nature of the safety interventions proposed and introduces the methods developed to assess safety. For the traffic engineering interventions, positive safety results were found in terms of reductions in the number of potentially hazardous interactions involving forklifts. Similarly, for the vehicle interventions, the research found that forklift drivers and managers considered the newly developed and installed Intelligent Transport Systems to be broadly acceptable in operational conditions, and the systems’ intended safety benefits were well understood. The results are discussed and conclusions are drawn regarding human factors aspects of forklift safety.     

A rose by any other name...would probably be given an acronym [cognitive systems engineering]

In this article, we concern ourselves with characterizations of the "new" approaches to the design of complex sociotechnical systems, and we use a biological classification scheme to organize the discussion. Until fairly recently, the design of complex sociotechnical systems was primarily known as "cognitive engineering" or "cognitive systems engineering" (CSE), a term introduced to denote an emerging branch of applied cognitive psychology. A number of new terms have since emerged, all of which might be considered members of the genus "human-centered computing" (HCC). A number of varieties have entered the fray, resulting in an "acronym soup" of terms that have been offered to designate "the" new approach to cognitive engineering. Using the rose metaphor, and taking some liberties with Latin, this article is organized around a set of "genuses" into which the individual "varieties" seem to fall.     

Human factors of complex sociotechnical systems

Increasingly products and services result from interactions among people who work across organizational, geographical, cultural and temporal boundaries. This has major implications for human factors and ergonomics (HFE), in particular, challenging the limits of the systems to be designed, and widening the range of system elements and dimensions that we need to consider. The design of sociotechnical systems that involve work across multiple boundaries requires better integration of the various sub-disciplines or components of HFE, as well as increased collaboration with other disciplines that provide either expertise regarding the domain of application or expertise in concepts that can enrich the system design. In addition, 'customers' contribute significantly to the 'co-production' of products/services, as well as to their quality/safety. The design of sociotechnical systems in collaboration with both the workers in the systems and the customers requires increasing attention not only to the design and implementation of systems, but also to the continuous adaptation and improvement of systems in collaboration with customers. This paper draws from research on human factors in the domains of health care and patient safety and of computer security.     

Using cognitive task analysis to explore issues in the procurement of intelligent decision support systems

Government statistics and various news reports suggest that upwards of half of all large-scale information technology (IT) development projects fail to meet expectations for facilitating cognitive work. Many of the failures point to the neglect of human-centering considerations during the development of sociotechnical systems. The groups of people who create IT themselves constitute a sociotechnical system. Therefore, laws of cognitive work apply to the cognitive work of IT development, and these laws include the “reductive tendency” for people to form simplified understandings when confronted with domains of dynamics and complexity. In this article, we report a study in which we “turned the tables” on IT systems development. Rather than using cognitive task analysis to study some work domain for which an envisioned IT system would be developed, we used cognitive task analysis to study the work domain of IT systems development itself. Through documentation analysis and critical decision method procedures, we sought to reveal specific challenges with regard to human-centering, and ways in which principles, methods, and tools of ergonomics (human factors, cognitive systems engineering) might help the developers of IT systems better address the human and social aspects of cognitive work. The findings highlight the outstanding challenges and barriers to the procurement and development of usable, useful, and understandable IT for sociotechnical systems. Challenges include the following: the need for better coordination mechanisms; the need to locate cognitive systems engineers, as advocates for workers, in key leadership roles; the need to reconceive concepts and methods of requirements and requirements specification; and the need for better negotiation of the trade-offs of cost/schedule considerations with human-centering considerations.

Accounting for memes in sociotechnical systems: extending the abstraction hierarchy to consider cognitive objects

Work domain analysis (WDA) is used to model the functional structure of sociotechnical systems (STS) through the abstraction hierarchy (AH). By identifying objects, processes, functions and measures that support system purposes, WDA reveals constraints within the system. Traditionally, the AH describes system elements at the lowest level of abstraction as physical objects. Multiple analyses of complex systems reveal that many include objects that exist only at a conceptual level. This paper argues that, by extending the AH to include cognitive objects, the analytical power of WDA is extended, and novel areas of application are enabled. Three case studies are used to demonstrate the role that cognitive objects play within STS. It is concluded that cognitive objects are a valid construct that offer a significant enhancement of WDA and enable its application to some of the world’s most pressing problems. Implications for future applications of WDA and the AH are discussed.

Practitioner summary: Some sociotechnical systems include memes as part of their functional structure. Three case studies were used to evaluate the utility of introducing cognitive objects alongside physical ones in work domain analysis, the first phase of cognitive work analysis. Including cognitive objects increases the scope and accuracy of work domain analysis.     

Distributed collaboration for engineering design: A review and reappraisal

Collaborative manufacturing is aimed to increase the flexibility of design and production processes through multiple organizations pooling strengths on a product‐by‐product basis to create distributed collaborative corporations. These collaborations involve multidisciplinary, geographically dispersed teams of engineers who often communicate only through voice, video, or computer‐mediated interfaces. Utilizing sociotechnical theory as a framework, this article reviews multiple sources of literature on collaboration and interprets them in light of the collaborative engineering design process. A conceptual model of distributed engineering collaboration based on a sociotechnical theory framework is proposed to understand how technology changes both the social interaction and the technical design process. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Application of AI in software and information engineering

Methodologies already exist for information systems analysis and design (e.g. SSADM, JSP, Merise, etc.) and supporting tools, namely, CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) and RDBMS (Relational Database Management System) and/or 4GL tools. All of these tools contain a data dictionary at the core of certain facilities.

In the underlying research and in this paper, the following questions need to be addressed:

• —How can the capability of a recently available data dictionary be enhanced with some knowledge-based modules?

• —What would be the architecture of such a system, based on the data dictionary of some CASE tools?

• —How can the informal and formal modelling approach information system design be combined?

• —What sort of knowledge-representation techniques would be suitable for the different tasks during the analysis and the design of the system?

The system outlined here would work as an intelligent assistant and workbench supporting the developer, but not as an automatic programming environment.     

Towards agent systems engineering

The term “ ” has became a buzzword these days, not only in academic circles, but also in some computer magazines and application fields of computer science like manufacturing and logistics. Hence, there is a pressing need for a design methodology for multi-agent systems. Or even stronger, there is a demand for an agent engineering technology, which includes computer assistance during the design phases, for the validation of the designed system, and for the implementation of the multi-agent system as a physically distributed system. This status report will introduce the field of multi-agent systems and its design. Three prominent applications will serve as a first motivation of the theme. Based on the ideas of the agent examples a discussion on the term agent will serve as a first motivation of the theme. Based of the theme. Based on the ideas of the agent architecture of an agent, its communication capabilities, and planning in a multi-agent context. After this broad technical introduction the main topic of this work will be tackled. An introduction to five methodologies for the design of multi-agent systems will be given and a new one, the method, will be presented. Eventually a brief discussion about the multi-agent design approaches will be given, the missing correlations to the task definitions will be critizised, and further research directions will be proposed.     

A system design framework-driven implementation of a learning collaboratory

This paper describes a design process to support the development of a learning collaboratory, a distributed, computer-based, virtual space for learning and work. A learning collaboratory, as a distributed distance learning environment, offers great opportunities to expand the way people teach and learn and to broaden educational opportunities to an ever increasing range of learners. The challenge is to design distance learning technologies that engender meaningful learning experiences that take full advantage of the power of computer-mediated communication to support innovative learner-centered and collaborative interactions between students, teachers, subject experts, and resources. First, the paper describes the learning collaboratory design framework (LUCIDIFY), a design process that integrates methods and concepts from cognitive systems engineering, theories of learning and instruction, distributed computing, and computer-supported collaborative learning to guide the principled design of learning collaboratories. Next, the paper describes how LUCIDIFY was used in the design and implementation of the collaborative learning environment for operational systems (CLEOS), a learning collaboratory for teachers, students, and practitioners in the physical sciences. CLEOS features two virtual instrument tutorials, an asynchronous messaging system, a project-based design and management application, and a collaborative multi-user domain infrastructure.     

Designing and simulating sociotechnical systems: Concepts and strategies

Today, technology design, technology use, and organizational structures in enterprises can no longer be regarded as isolated from each other because they are highly correlated in networks, which become increasingly complex and dynamic. Enterprises must be understood as sociotechnical systems that consist of human and technical subsystems and their relations with each other. They can be analyzed by referring to the concept of self-similarity (or fractals). In (re)designing such systems, modeling and simulation methods are needed. This report describes a method that combines two different simulation methods. They can be integrated to model and simulate complex sociotechnical systems as a whole. The method has been developed by modeling and simulating computer-supported cooperation and communication along the logistic chain in intermodal traffic (train–truck freight transportation). © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The role of information support systems in the joint optimization of work systems

Sociotechnical approach preaches the affinity of the social and the technical organization but divides organizations into social and technical subsystems. Thus, it has failed to anticipate the possibilities of new technologies within the social system. The social subsystem of a modern sociotechnical system does not consist of mere human beings but combines people and the technological artifacts they use. In this article, we discuss one such technology, information support, and how it can be used to expand functional redundancy of a sociotechnical system, even the cognitive redundancy of individual people. However, such technologies have often been applied specifically to limit functional redundancy of the sociotechnical system, that is, to reduce communication, learning, and utilization of human talent. The discussion is based on findings from case studies on multimedia‐based interactive task support systems used in lightweight assembly industry in Finland and in Denmark. The case studies provide both justification to the information support approach and questions to be addressed in the future. For example, why did the introduction of so many interactive task support systems fail? © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Human software requirements engineering for computer-controlled manufacturing systems

Computers as integral systems components determine the quality of work of operators in industrial production. This paper contributes to improving the design of man-machine systems by proposing a formal aid to human software requirements definition and design. First, the need for considering human requirements is stressed. Since technology is to be considered as ‘non-deterministic’, the designer is faced with a degree of freedom in his design decisions which can be and should be utilized for raising the quality of work of people operating computer-controlled man-machine systems. Then, a hierarchy of human quality criteria applicable for ergonomic judgement of work design measures is derived. Following the principle of prospective work design, these criteria must be considered as design goals just like technical and economic requirements. As a formal aid for making design decisions meeting these comprehensive requirements, the Requirements/Quality Criteria Matrix is proposed. Finally, this method of considering human requirements is illustrated by designing some man-machine interface features for operators of a hypothetical flexible manufacturing system.     

Establishing information requirements for supervisory controllers in a flexible manufacturing system using GTA

In this article we consider the technological change that has occurred in complex manufacturing systems within the past two decades and the implications it has had on the role of human operators in manufacturing systems control. Our examination ranges from the traditional production line manned by skilled machinists to flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) under supervisory control. On the basis of this study, we raise the question as to whether new advanced manufacturing technology interfaces are supportive of human operators in their responsibilities to manufacturing systems. We address this problem by analyzing supervisory controller information requirements for intervening in complex process control tasks as part of FMS operation. This analysis was conducted using a cognitive engineering research methodology, which has not previously been applied, in the domain of manufacturing. The method of GTA was applied to supervisory control of an FMS and produced detailed information requirements, which facilitated the formulation of general design guidelines for FMS interface design. The guidelines are aimed at supporting human operator process strategy development and decision making. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Bionics—An inspiration for intelligent manufacturing and engineering

Value creation in all its facets lies at the core of intelligent manufacturing and engineering. In the last 20 years the field of manufacturing has undergone many changes and refinements. Terms such as Integrated Management Systems (IMS), Just in Time (JIT), Toyota Production System (TPS) in the context of Lean Production and ‘Flow’ were parts of the toolset developed by the Toyota Corporation which pushed them to the forefront of world automotive production. While benchmarking the design production systems and their associated efficiencies is very worthwhile, there are other engineering design, lean production, just in time, and production and supply chain exemplars which are worth investigating. A primary source of best-practice engineering in flexible and intelligent manufacturing is to be found in the study of ‘Bionics’ (Biomimicry). The intelligence in design and operational efficiency which is brought to Bionics by design in nature was recognised by Leonardo DaVinci when he wrote: “… in her (design) nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous” [1]… This paper examines how design and engineering can learn and apply through the study of bionics/biomimicry, a vast pool of knowledge of design and systems engineering strategies. Such strategies and exemplars will provide benchmarks which will result in inspirational approaches in design, efficiency and sustainable engineering solutions.     

Cognitive engineering of a new telephone operator workstation using COGNET

Many cognitive engineering methodologies for user-centered design involve modeling procedural knowledge; others deal with domain semantics or conceptual models. COGnitive NEwork of Tasks (COGNET) is a framework for modeling human cognition and decision-making which provides an integrated representation of the knowledge, behavioral actions, strategies and problem solving skills used in a domain or task situation, yielding a powerful cognitive engineering tool. A case study of the design of the user interface for a new telephone operator workstation is presented to illustrate the derivation of the design from the components of the COGNET model. The model does not directly convey any specific feature of the interface design, but rather a formal representation of what the user must do with the resulting interface. This information is then evolved through a set of transformations which systematically move toward design features, in a fully traceable manner.

Relevance to industry

With the increasing prevalence of technical systems in complex work domains, cognitive engineering is necessary in designing the user interface for those systems to promote efficient integration of person and machine. The cognitive engineering methodology presented here addresses that need.