Uncertainty management in enroute air traffic control: a field study exploring controller strategies and requirements for automation

The management of uncertainty is a critical aspect of current as well as future air traffic control operations. This study investigated: (1) sources of uncertainty in enroute air traffic control, (2) strategies that air traffic controllers adopt to cope with uncertainty, (3) the trade-offs and contingencies that influences the adoption of these uncertainties, and (4) the requirements for system design that support controllers in following these strategies. The data were collected using a field study in two enroute air traffic control centres, involving “over the shoulder” observation sessions, discussions with air traffic controllers, and document analysis. Three types of uncertainty coping strategies were identified: reducing uncertainty, acknowledging uncertainty, and increasing uncertainty. The RAWFS heuristic (Lipshitz and Strauss in Organ Behav Hum Decis Process 69:149–163, 1997) and anticipatory thinking (Klein et al. in Anticipatory thinking, Proceedings of the eighth international NDM conference, Pacific Grove, CA, 2007) were used to identify reduction and acknowledgement strategies. Recent suggestions by Grote (Saf Sci 71:71–79, 2015) were used to further explore strategies that increase uncertainty. The study presents a new framework for the classification of uncertainties in enroute air traffic control and identified the uncertainty management strategies and underlying tactics, in context of contingencies and trade-offs between operational goals. The results showed that controllers, in addition to reducing and acknowledging uncertainty, may deliberately increase uncertainty in order to increase flexibility for other actors in the system to meet their operational goals. The study describes new tactics for acknowledging and increasing uncertainty. The findings were summarized in the air traffic controller complexity and uncertainty management model. Additionally, the results bring to light system design recommendations that allow controllers to follow these different coping strategies, including (1) the design of alerts, (2) the transparency of prediction tools, and (3) system flexibility as a requirement for acknowledging and increasing uncertainty. The results are particularly important as uncertainty is likely to increase in future operations of enroute air traffic control, requiring automation support for controllers. Implications for future air traffic management scenarios as envisioned within the SESAR Joint Undertaking (SESAR JU in European ATM Master Plan, 2 eds, 2012) and NextGen (FAA in FAA’s NextGen implementation plan, 2014) operational concepts are discussed.     

Enterprise systems and demand chain management: a cross-sectional field study

Increased product variety, compressed cycle times, supply chain network based competition and the uncertainty in business environment are forcing organizations to shift their emphasis towards demand chain management. Though enterprise systems and supply chain management software solutions are well in place in most of the large enterprises in Australia, their ability to support demand chain management approach is not yet known. This paper investigates the adoption of demand chain management in Australian organizations using cross-sectional qualitative field study. It found that the adoption is limited despite the organizational capabilities and sound digital platforms. Standardization, integration, visibility and control of processes and information, enabled by enterprise systems, are helping the organizations in improving their ability to sense and shape market demand and customer needs, and build agility into their decision making processes. Attempts to synchronise operating and finance cycles and collecting market intelligence and sharing of that across the supply chain are some of the initiatives that have started showing benefits. Adopting the demand chain management initiatives such as establishment of market intelligence mechanism, building agility into decision making processes, sophisticated usage of optimization tools embedded in software solutions, and process frameworks such as Supply Chain Operations Reference are helping organizations to achieve both agility and control simultaneously.     

Assessing organisational obstacles to component-based development: a case study approach

This paper discusses some human, social and organisational issues affecting the introduction of Component-Based Development (CBD) in organisations. In particular, the paper presents the outcome of a case study aimed at assessing organisational obstacles influencing successful application of CBD in the industry. We present some organisational problems experienced by three organisations in adopting and implementing CBD, including cognitive skills, disincentives, organisational politics and organisational culture. In each case we suggest some solutions that developers and managers should consider in order to minimise these organisational problems. We suggest that applying social–technical approaches can minimise the impact of these organisational obstacles. Examples of social–technical approaches include maintaining a relationship with customers throughout the development process and eliciting support from key sponsors and stakeholders.     

The organisational impact of knowledge-based systems: a knowledge perspective

The fact that knowledge-based systems (KBS) may have considerable impact when introduced into an organisation is beyond dispute. The assessments of this impact in the literature, however, are not satisfactory. They overlook the main discriminating characteristic of KBS, i.e. the fact that KBS claim to store and handle knowledge. The article explores ways for bringing ‘knowledge’ into discussions of the impact of KBS. A knowledge perspective is developed which does justice to the impact of KBS on both articulated and tacit knowledge at the strategic, tactical and operational level. Possible applications of this perspective are explored with illustrations from an empirical investigation of KBS in 17 organisations.     

Evaluating the generalizability of the Organizational Constraints Analysis framework: a hospital bed management case study

Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA) provides useful tools for analyzing and modeling work constraints that can inform the development of systems design requirements. However, it does not provide effective tools for analyzing and modeling organizational constraints that can inform the development of organizational design requirements. By integrating organizational theories with the CWA approach, we developed the Organizational Constraints Analysis framework, a formative approach to the analysis, modeling, and design of the organization of work. In this paper, we test the generalizability of the framework by using its two analytical templates—the Organizational Constraints model and Work Possibilities diagram—to analyze the hospital bed management work domain. The research findings suggest that the concepts, investigative probes, and notations from the analytical templates can be applied to complex work domains beyond those in which it was initially developed. We conclude with suggestions for how the Organizational Constraints Analysis framework can complement CWA methods by helping researchers and practitioners develop a broader organizational perspective on the constraints that drive how work can be done in organizations.     

The organisational learning effects of management accounting information under advanced manufacturing technology

This study empirically examined the organisational learning effects of the nonfinancial performance information provided by management accounting information systems (MAISs) under advanced manufacturing technology (AMT). In this study, a target costing system and the frequent and quick reporting of information were considered the facilitators of learning. First, we examined the relationships between AMT level and the amount of nonfinancial performance information produced by MAISs. The empirical results showed that there are significant positive relationships between the level of AMT and nonfinancial performance information. With a systems approach, we also proved the impact of the relationships among AMT levels, nonfinancial performance information and learning facilitators on the organisational performance of a firm. The results of our research suggest that under a high level of AMT, for the provision of information to result in an increase of performance through organisational learning, a target costing system must be introduced and a large amount of information should be provided frequently and quickly. The results of this study also showed that although AMT level may be low, fairly well-arranged facilitators and a moderately large amount of information may be necessary for the improvement of performance. In conclusion, effective organisational learning depends on the provision of relevant information as well as efficient learning support mechanisms.     

High-performing organizations match technology and management strategies: Results of a survey

Simultaneous engineering involves, in part, the design of processes. For many companies today, processes being designed often include some form of advanced manufacturing technology (AMT). An engineering decision often made during a simultaneous design process is whether to create stand-alone islands versus an integrated process. The implication of that decision on management practices has been speculated about at length and examined using individual case studies. In this article, a quantitative survey of companies is described to address the question: Is there an empirically supported relationship between degree of technical integration and types of management practices that is tied to plant performance? Survey data indicated that plants with integrated ATM adopted different management practices than plants with non-integrated AMT, and that adoption of these different practices was correlated with plant performance. For simultaneous engineering, then, these results suggest that when designing a production process, consideration must be given to the management practices implied by technical choices made, since different management practices are needed for different technical choices if plant performance is to be fostered.

Relevance to industry

Engineers designing the degree of electronic or mechanical integration between machines will need to take into account that degree of integration creates different demands on management practices and that if these practices are not implemented when the integration is implemented, the organization will not succeed. The different management practices needed for significant versus little integration are described.     

Formulating strategies for stakeholder management: a case-based reasoning approach

The management of competing stakeholders has emerged as an important weapon for strategic management. Typically, reactive, defensive, accommodative, or proactive (RDAP) strategies have been employed for getting into the world of stakeholders. This paper proposes a methodology for formulating strategies for stakeholder management by the use of these RDAP strategies. Our methodology consists of four phases: stakeholder analysis, strategy retrieval, strategy revision, and strategy implementation. Strategies are derived on the basis of similar cases stored in case bases. A system called the stakeholder management strategy support system (SMSS) is implemented to put our methodology to work. In order to demonstrate the practical usefulness of this system, Korean Healthcare IT (Information Technology) industry is illustrated. This illustration implies that our methodology is useful, especially in view of dynamic nature of business and its stakeholders. Our methodology will be able to help any business leader create value while navigating a multi-stakeholder environment.     

Strategies for implementing decision technology systems successfully: a field study in army housing management

A decision technology system (DTS) has been proposed to provide direct support for the entire decision‐making process. In the 1990s, the concept was implemented in stages to facilitate US Army housing management. This implementation has been the first successful field application of the DTS theory. Recent enhancements confirmed earlier insights and offered important new lessons in developing, implementing, and benefiting from DTSs. This paper discusses the original insights and fresh lessons. To provide a context, the article first briefly describes the enhancements and presents a typical, but streamlined, system session. The paper then summarizes the documented gains from implementing the DTS theory, reports the utilized strategies, and infers the implications for the systems analysis and design process.     

Analysts and clients in organisational contexts: a conversational perspective

This paper takes a conversational perspective on the issue of analyst–client interaction, concentrating on how social and organisational contexts impact on the verbal process of defining a new information system. It has been suggested that organisational agendas are built from talk at the interactional level (Boden, 1994), and this paper seeks to explore the relationship between social and organisational contexts and the process of early requirements gathering. Analysts and clients were asked about their aims, their professional role, and other issues that arose in their interactions with each other as part of a larger study in early requirements gathering. The paper discusses three themes from three case studies that can be seen to be embedded in the social and organisational context of early requirements gathering—how the issues to be discussed during the interaction were put forward, professional relationships, and the overall organisational context in which the interaction takes place. Some observations are made about the varying social and organisational contexts of early requirements gathering and the role of individual differences, and the possibility of using typical contexts as ‘repertoire building research’ (Schön, 1983) to flow into practice.     

Proactive management of distributed organisational computing: Prevention always pays, doesn't it?

Organisations have eagerly adopted the new opportunities provided by distributed computing technology. These opportunities have also created new dependency on the technology and threats of technical problems. Information technology (IT) management has to choose its position towards these new technical risks. Should the problems be prevented proactively in advance or settled reactively afterwards? This paper draws conclusions from an action research case study aimed at proactive versus reactive end-user support. Between 1994 and 1997 one of the business units in Nokia Telecommunications required a new approach for its distributed information systems (IS) to facilitate rapid organisational growth. The distributed IS and its end-user support were established and organised during a 30-month re-engineering process. These results provide a new view to the dependencies between business processes and IT. The new distributed IT has become, often insidiously, a necessity for vital business processes. Therefore, risk management should be adopted as a standard tool for IS management to identify such dependencies. Proactive actions should be aimed at those areas where IT-related business risks are identified. Proactivity should be supplemented by reactive support to provide daily assistance for the end-users.     

跨网段ARP欺骗的原理及防治策略的研究

ARP协议主要实现了网络层地址到数据链路层地址的动态映射,由于ARP协议具有无序性、无确认性、动态性、无安全机制等特性,ARP欺骗攻击成了局域网中一种常见的攻击现象.在深入研究ICMP重新定向原理的基础上,通过一个实例解释了跨网段ARP欺骗原理和具体实现过程,并给出了具体的检测与防范方法.     

The use of systems development methodologies in practice: a field study

This paper discusses the findings of a field study of experienced systems developers which investigated the use of systems development methodologies (SDMs) in practice. Among the main findings to emerge are the following. There is a wide difference between the formalized sequence of steps and stages prescribed by a methodology and the methodology-in-action uniquely enacted for each development project. Also, there is much evidence which suggests that developers omit certain aspects of methodologies not from a position of ignorance, but from the more pragmatic basis that certain aspects are not relevant to the development environment they face. Thus, methodologies are tailored to the needs of the prevailing development environment and, being documented in a single manual often, are framed at a higher level of granularity that specifies broad activities and objectives, rather than specifying in a very detailed fashion the exact manner in which development should take place. Additionally, the findings clarify the apparently contradictory position in the literature as to whether developer experience is positively or negatively correlated with methodology use. The study would suggest that experienced developers are likely to use methodologies, albeit ones which have been heavily customized to the exigencies of the particular situation.     

The influence of controllable task-lighting on productivity: a field study in a factory

This study examines whether or not a controllable task-lighting system that allows people to select high lighting levels will enhance productivity under real working conditions. For a period of 16 months a study was carried out in a luminaire factory in Finland in which such a task-lighting system was installed above 10 individual workstations. The illuminances selected by the users were recorded and productivity was monitored. Enhancing productivity can be relevant in industrial processes. The increase of productivity for the test group was +4.5% compared to a reference group, and statistically significant. The mechanism for this increase can be improved visual performance, biological effects of light, or psychological effects. Different dimming speeds were used to see whether the subjects' choices were based on illuminance or on the response of the control system. Decreasing the dimming speed of the system decreased the illuminance chosen by 13%. However, at slower dimming speeds the subjects took 55% longer to reach a given level, which suggests that they were aiming to set the lighting to their preferred level and not just pushing the button for a certain time.     

基于WLAN的安全管理需求与安全管理策略

无线局域网(WLAN)摆脱了传统的繁琐综合布线设置,其简易与方便更是被多数单位内部所广泛使用,解决WLAN的安全保密问题就显得尤为突出,针对WLAN安全管理需求问题进行研究和分析,提出了解决WLAN安全管理问题的方法和策略.     

The effects of task complexity and experience on learning and forgetting: a field study

This paper examines the effects of task complexity and experience on parameters of individual learning and forgetting. Three attributes of task complexity and experience are addressed: the method, machine, and material employed. The task involved a high-manual-dexterity skill taken from an operating textile assembly plant; there were 2853 individual participant learning/forgetting episodes. A parametric model of individual learning and forgetting that allows the evaluation of worker response to the attributes of task complexity and experience is discussed. Results indicate that both task complexity and experience significantly affect learning and forgetting rates. Potential applications of this research include the allocation of workers to tasks based on individual learning/forgetting characteristics.     

Using Hollywood's greatest film scenes to illustrate concepts of organisational behaviour and management

Great film moments achieve a life of their own. They seem to hang around in the viewer's subconscious mind begging for clarification or, if nothing else, classification. The author proposes using these moments or ‘greatest film scenes’ for the purpose of illustrating concepts of organisational behaviour and management. A chart is derived that enumerates the top 10 greatest film scenes, associates a relevant management concept or concepts to that scene and then provides a series of citations relevant to the concept. The citations are provided for the purpose of enabling further research.     

Using Hollywood's greatest film scenes to illustrate concepts of organisational behaviour and management

Great film moments achieve a life of their own. They seem to hang around in the viewer's subconscious mind begging for clarification or, if nothing else, classification. The author proposes using these moments or 'greatest film scenes' for the purpose of illustrating concepts of organisational behaviour and management. A chart is derived that enumerates the top 10 greatest film scenes, associates a relevant management concept or concepts to that scene and then provides a series of citations relevant to the concept. The citations are provided for the purpose of enabling further research.