the voice of the systems - incoseil€¦ · (hfe), human-computer interaction (hci) design,...

The Voice of the SystemsThe Journal Of The Israeli Systems Engineers

ISSUE NO.24 | June 2019

www.iltam.orgThe online version is on ILTAM website at:

The Dull Side of Systems Engineering [opinion] (pp 6-7)Hanan Sylverman

Human-System Integration: Better-placed Human FactorsEngineering or a Missed Opportunity for a New Discipline? [opinion] (pp 8-9)Avi Parush

Towards HSI Engineering (pp 1-5)Avi Harel

Innovations in Systems Engineering - Summary of the GordonCenter Seminar Day, January 15th, 2019 (pp 10)Avigdor Zonnenshain

http://www.iltam.org


Graphic design: Ezra Siton

GORDON CENTER FOR SYSTEMS EMGINEERINGTECHNION - ISRAEL INSTITURE OF TECHNOLOGY

www.gordon-se.technion.ac.il

ISSUE NO.24 | June 2019

The Voice of the SystemsThe Journal Of The Israeli Systems Engineers

INCOSE_IL - THE ISRAELI SOCIETY FOR SYSTEMS ENGINEERING

ILTAM - Users' Association Of Advanced Development Of Complex Systems And SoS

Address: 29 Hamered st. Tel-Aviv, Israel 6812511

Tel: +972-3-6889220 • Fax: +972-3-6889216 Email: [email protected] • Site: www.iltam.org

FOLLOW US on : facebook.com/iltamorg

IIITable Of Contents

The Hebrew section is on the opposite side of the journalחלקו העברי של הגליון נמצא מצידו השני

Table of Content The Voice of the System | Issue No.24 | June 2019

INTRODUCTION

JOINING AND INFORMATION

The Voice of INCOSE_IL President ................................................... VRam Oron

The Dull Side of Systems Engineering [opinion] ............................ 6Hanan Sylverman

Human-System Integration: Better-placed Human Factors Engineering or a Missed Opportunity for a New Discipline?[opinion] ........................................................................................ 8

Avi Parush

Innovations in Systems Engineering - Summary of the GordonCenter Seminar Day, January 15th, 2019 ............................................ 10

Avigdor Zonnenshain

ARTICLES

The program of the Systems Engineering Seminarat the Gordon Center, 18/6/2019 ..................................................... 11

Towards HSI Engineering ................................................................... 1Avi Harel

The Voice of the Editor ........................................................................ IVAmir Tomer

www.iltam.orgThe online version is on ILTAM website at:



ISSUE NO.24 • June 2019The Voice Of the Systems - The Journal Of The Israeli Systems Engineers

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The Voice of the EditorProf. Amir Tomer, CSEP

Dear Readers,

The 24th issue of The Voice of the Systems, in front of you, is not very packed this time, and does not contain long and heavy articles. However, most of the articles deal with the topic of Human-System Integration(HSI). This is also the topic of the bi-annual Systems Engineering Seminar at Gordon Center, which is conducted on the day this issue is published. This is also an opportunity to remind the INCOSE HIS 2019 conference, which will be held at Biarrtiz, France, on September 11th-13th. The conference chair is Prof. Guy Andre Boy, who is also the guest speaker in today’s seminar. I should also mention that our colleagues Prof. Avi Parush, Avi Harel and Dr. Avigdor Zonnenshain will also present at HIS 2019.

Many of us participated on March in the 10th international conference of the Israeli Association of Systems Engineering – INCOSE_IL. Many participants expressed their high satisfaction from the conference’s topics and contents, both in their feedbacks in orally. You might expect to find a summary of the conference in this issue, but we decided to dedicate a special issue of The Voice of the Systems to the conference, which will be published in the summer.

We would like to thank Dr. Avigdor Zonnenshain, who, as usually, summarized for us the previous Gordon Center seminar.

Towards the upcoming summer vacation, I would like to wish you all a safe and calm Summer.

I wish you pleasant reading.

Prof. Amir Tomer, CSEPKinneret CollegeThe Editor

[email protected]

mailto:amir%40amirtomer.com%0D?subject=


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The Voice of INCOSE_IL PresidentDr. Ram Oron

Dear Systems Engineering Community,

This year, we are holding quite a few activities, including conferences, seminars, workshops, and volunteer activities with youth. In the current school year, we held a volunteering activity in which system engineers mentored groups of high school students. The activity took place over several months, in which the students performed multi-disciplinary projects under the guidance and mentoring of the volunteering systems engi-neers. I’d like to praise the volunteers for their contribution and thank them for providing significant feedbacks throughout the activity in order to improve it.

In March we held the 10th International Conference on Systems Engineering in Herzliya. The conference was attended by more than 350 participants, including more than 10 guests from abroad. We were honored to host INCOSE president, Mr. Garry Roedler, who spoke in the plenary session; and received an honorary membership of theIsraeli Chapter.

We gave a certificate of appreciation to Prof. Aviv Rosen of the Technion for his long-standing contribution to education for systems engineering and the community. Also, Fellow certificates were granted to contributing members in the Chapter: Dr. Moshe Weiler, Ami Harel, Zvi Lando, Yigal Eskin and Dr. Ram Oron.

I would like to thank the participants, the lecturers, the chairpersons, the members of the committees and of course the conference chairman, Prof. Amir Tomer, who professionally led the conference. In addition, thanks to Moshe Salem and the Iltam teamfor the organization of the conference.

Conference pictures: INCOSE President presents in the plenary session, and Prof. Aviv Rosen receives a certificate of appreciation (left to right: Garry Roedler, Dr. Ram Oron,Prof. Aviv Rosen, Dr. Avigdor Zonnen-

shain and Moshe Salem)

We were also honored to host the President Elect of the IEEE Systems Council, Professor Vincenzo Piuri, who delivered a seminar and launched an Israeli chapter of IEEE Systems Council. We work in cooperation with Dr. Yaniv Mordecai, leading the Israeli chapter, to enhance our outreach and to promote and expand the systems engineering activities in Israel.


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During the conference, we took advantage of the opportunity and held a meeting of the presidency of INCOSE IL chapterwith participation of four INCOSE management members. We had about 20 participants, and discussed our strategy and annual work plan, as well as the main activities and programs of INCOSE worldwide, in the EMEA sector, and in the academic field.

We received positive feedback about the conference quality and number of participants, as well as the scope of activities in Israel. We were asked to share some of our activities with INCOSE, including our leadership workshops and volunteer activities with youth. Our cooperation with IEEE Systems Council received a posi-tive feedback. We were encouraged to increase our partnership with INCOSE by participating in international working groups, conferences and workshops, as well as sharing research and academic activities with INCOSE Academic Council.

Wishing us all afruitful summer.

Sincerely,Dr. Ram OronPresident, INCOSE [email protected]


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Towards HSI EngineeringAvi Harel, Ergolight

[email protected]

☯ Why HSI?There is a large body of evidence showing that the critical system components are the human operators. Analysis of many case studies divulges that the system performance can be augmented by design, if the developers are aware of the special attributes of the operators. Special disciplines were developed to optimize the system performance according to the special features and limitations of the operators: human factors engineering (HFE), human-computer interaction (HCI) design, user-centered design (UCD), cognitive engineering, etc. All these disciplines contributed to enhancing the system performance (Norman & Draper, 1986), yet, the behavior of the human operators is often different from the expectations. It seems that the source for operational surprise is in the way the operators are integrated in the system design: in traditional systems integration (SI), we assume that the system modules interact with each other through communication channels, and that the processing in each module is independent of the other modules. This assumption is not valid for the operators: unlike machine modules, the operators are expected to master the system, especially in exceptional situation.

Human in system integration (HSI) is a new framework for optimizing the system operation by human factors. It is an extension of SI, considering the special requirements about the interaction with of the human operators. Unlike operator-centered disciplines, which focus on adapting the machine behavior to the operators’ capabilities and limitations (e.g., Norman, 1988), HSI is transdisciplinary, implying that it deals also with the inter-dependencies between cognitive processes and machine processes (Sillitto, 2018).

☯ The scope of HSI designSEBoK adopts the definition of HSI by ISO/IEC/IEEE 2011, as “an interdisciplinary technical and management process for integrating human considerations with and across all system elements, an essential enabler to systems engineering practice” (BKCASE). The domain considerations include: “manpower, personnel, training, human factors engineering, occupational health, environment, safety, habitability, and human survivability”. The 4th industrial revolution is about a shift in our view of the effect of technology on our experience of using systems. The potential impact applies to various kinds of resilience-critical systems:

• Safety critical systems - where the impact could be injury, environmental impact etc,

• Performance critical systems where it might impact on profit, efficiency

• Consumer and entertainment products - frustration, loss of sales, negative brand image etc.

☯ HSI thinkingThe new framework may embrace a methodology of HSI thinking. HSI thinking is an extension of system think-ing. According to the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK) “system thinking is the application of system sciences to assist in solving real world problems”. The HSI approach to solving real world problems complies with the system approach defined by SEBoK as “a set of principles for applying systems thinking to engineered system contexts”. With system thinking a system engineer “can see both the forest and the trees; one eye on each” (Richmond, 1994). Accordingly, we may consider two aspects of HSI thinking:


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The ‘trees view’ is the internal aspect, about the functional units integrated with the operators, collaboration between components of the engineered system, and

The ‘forest view’ is the contextual aspect, about the interaction of the engineered system with the real world, namely, the customers and stakeholders, as well as the operational constraints.

The following chart illustrates that the focus of HSI engineering should be the human-machine interaction (HMI):

The figure on the left demonstrates a model of basic system thinking, showing that engineering is goal driven and condition oriented. Engineering is required to repeat making the same design mistakes over and over again (Standish, 1995). Boy (2013) suggested that system design should be from purpose to means, from outside-in. According to this model, the contextual aspect is defined based on requirements specifications, with respect to the user’s tasks and capability, and considering forecast of the context. Also, the internal aspect is defined design considerations about the various roles of the operators, and their collaboration with the functional units. The figure on the right presents a two layers model of HSI thinking obtained from merging the basic model of system thinking with the Outside-In model.

☯ Agile HSI ThinkingIn the early days of systems engineering, system development followed the waterfall model. According to this model, the system design is based on the requirement specifications, which remained unchanged until the version release. This model did not work very well, because during the system development new requirements emerge. Therefore, the waterfall model was replaced by other models, such as iterative development or agile development, which facilitated changing the requirements during the system development. HSI thinking is a continuous process, integrated with agile development. The contextual aspect includes sensing the need to change the requirements and triggering the change. The internal aspect is the traditional response to changes, typical of agile development.

☯ The Human Side of the Interaction For the purposes of systems engineering, it is helpful to consider two aspects of the HSI:

• The task view, in which we examine the ways people interact with the system

• The capability view, in which we examine physical and mental capabilities, motivation and limitation of the human operators, and their effect on performance and successful operation of the system.

Accordingly, it is helpful to use two distinct views of the operator: as a system controller and as a system unit.


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As a system controller, we are interested in functions: production, performance, effect, etc. As a system unit, we are interested in the operator’s ability to make the system work, and about safety. For example, we want to detect a situation of a pilot passed out due to G-LOC (g-force induced loss of consciousness) and activate an Auto-GCAS (Ground Collision Avoidance System) to stabilize the airplane and the pilot (Dockrill, 2016).

As a system controller, the operator can have various roles: a user, motivated by functions and performance, a supervisor, motivated by the need to make sure that the system operates as intended, and a controller, who needs to manually make the system work. As a system unit, we are concerned about the operator’s ability to function as a system controller, which is determined by qualification, motivation, vigilance, etc.

☯ The Engineering Chasm Traditionally, the engineers who define the interaction with the operators are systems engineers or software engineers. Typically, they are technology-oriented, which means that they try their best to integrate state-of-the-art technological feature. Often, they are feature-oriented, which means that they include in the design as many features as the technology allows them to include, regardless of whether or how the operators will use them. Also, often, they are designer-centric, which means that optimize the interaction according to their knowledge about the operational procedures, and their own preferences. A primary challenge of system design in the 4th IR is about the people experience in going through this change. Recently, usability practitioners discuss challenges of incorporating human factors in system development. Unfortunately, systems engineers are not always aware of the benefits of considering human factors, and usability practitioners fail to explain their offer (e.g., Weinberg, 1971). There is a need to bridge this chasm from both sides. Systems engineers need to understand the benefits that they can get from incorporating human factors and usability practitioners need to demonstrate and explain to systems engineers how to integrate the theories of cognitive sciences in the system development.

☯ Design Highlights The discipline of HSI engineering may involve changes in the following aspects of the HMI design.

• Timing: traditionally, human factors are added ad-hoc to the system design. This is too late. It is the respon-sibility of systems engineers to integrate human factors in the stage or system analysis and requirements specification.

• Time span: traditionally, usability considerations focus on the stages of marketing and initial operation. It is essential to extend the scope of usability assurance to the whole life cycle.

• Automation control: a main consideration in HMI design is the balance between automation and human control. The new discipline will propose guidelines for collaboration design, optimizes for maximal perfor-mance and minimal risks (e.g., Norman, 1990).

• Failure analysis: Traditionally, failure prevention is based on root-cause analysis. Such analysis does not support coping with the unexpected and proposes developing rule-based protection. Rebounding from operator’s slip should be integrated in the system design. The new discipline proposes that applying new methodologies for structured rebounding.

• Error tolerance: a common practice in system design is to apply means for fault tolerance. Traditionally, systems engineers do not apply such means for protection from operator’s errors. The new discipline proposes applying a model and means for preventing operator’s errors (e.g., Zonnenshain & Harel, 2015).


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• Extended exception handling: traditionally, interaction design focuses on procedures of normal operation. However, system failure involves difficulties in operating in exceptional situations. Applying golden rules applicable to normal operation, such as those proposed by Shneiderman (1987), might hamper the interac-tion in exceptional situations. It is about time to expand the HMI design practices, such as of deciding on interaction styles, to also support exception detection, troubleshooting, recovery and emergency operation.

• Modeling the HMI: a common practice for UI design is in terms of event-response. The new discipline considers typical sources of unexpected diversion, advocates scenario-based interaction styles and applies rule-based procedure-oriented definition (e.g., Leveson, 2004).

• Human-machine collaboration: the new discipline proposes a new model of human-machine collaboration, enabling to cope with the exceptions. Also, it proposes that the implementation should be based on pro-tocols describing proper interaction, which will enable diversion detection. Special safe-mode operational procedures are essential to deal with the unexpected in emergency.

• Situation awareness: a primary source for system failure is the lack of information required for situation awareness. A key related problem is of attention distraction due information overload, and the role of nuisance alarms. The new discipline proposes to develop a means for assessing the effect of various S/N ratio of notifications and alerts.

• Incidence investigation: traditionally, system failure is attributed to the operator (Dekker, 2007). The new discipline encourages radical changes in system thinking, to mitigate the risk of common biases in interac-tion design and to enable learning from mishaps. These changes should be accompanied by technological advances, including activity trackers and analyzers (e.g., Harel, 1999), based on data mining technology (e.g., Harel et al., 2008).

• Glossary: various industry domains use specific terms for common attributes of HMI. The new discipline proposes a glossary that may enable engineers of the different domains speak using the same language.

☯ CONCLUSIONSHSI engineering is an extension of quality engineering. The engineering goals may be defined in terms of eliminating barriers to optimal performance. In order to ensure long-term high performance, the design should focus on enforcing operational reliability. Accordingly, it is primarily about HMI design and testing. A main conclusion from the complexity and variety of related considerations and methods is that in the 4th industrial revolution the theory of HSI engineering should evolve to a sub discipline of systems engineering. The 4th industrial revolution may involve various shifts towards HMI, associated with technology, methodology and HMI thinking and practices. These shifts may affect the people productivity, quality of life and safety. The new discipline may be based on scientific foundations, which may require studies for high degrees in universities. The discussion above suggests that the focus of these studies will be on HMI design, testing and optimization.


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☯ REFERENCES1. BKCASE Editorial Board. 2017. The Guide to the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK), v. 1.9.1

R.J. Cloutier (Editor in Chief). Hoboken, NJ: The Trustees of the Stevens Institute of Technology. Accessed DATE. www.sebokwiki.org. BKCASE is managed and maintained by the Stevens Institute of Technology Systems Engineering Research Center, the International Council on Systems Engineering, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society.

2. Boy, G.A. Orchestrating Human-Centered Design. New York: Springer, 2013. ISBN 978-1-4471-4338-3

3. Dekker, S. Just Culture: Balancing Safety and Accountability. CRC Press, ISBN 9781409440604, 2007,

4. Dockrill, P. WATCH: F-16 Autopilot System Saves The Life of an Unconscious Fighter Pilot, Science Alert, 14 Sept. 2016.

5. Harel, A., 1999. Automatic Operation Logging and Usability Validation, Proceedings of HCI International '99, Munich, Germany, Vol. 1, pp. 1128-1133

6. Harel, A., Kenett, R.S. and Ruggeri, F., Modeling Web Usability Diagnostics on the basis of Usage Statistics, in Statistical Methods in eCommerce Research, ed. W. Jank and G. Shmueli, Wiley, 2008, pp. 131—172.

7. Leveson, N.G. A New Accident Model for Engineering Safer Systems, Safety Science, 2004, Vol. 42, No. 4, pp. 237-270.

8. Norman, D.A., The Design of Everyday Things, 1988, ISBN 978-0-465-06710-7

9. Norman, D.A. The "problem" of automation: Inappropriate feedback and interaction, not "over-automation". In D. E. Broadbent, A. Baddeley & J. T. Reason (Eds.), Human factors in hazardous situations (pp. 585-593). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990

10. Norman, D.A. & Draper, S.W. User Centered System Design; New Perspectives on Human-Computer Inter-action, L. Erlbaum Associates Inc. Hillsdale, NJ, USA, 1986 ISBN:0898597811

11. Richmond, B. Systems Dynamics/Systems Thinking: Let’s Just Get On With It. In, International Systems Dynamics Conference. Sterling, Scotland, 1994.

12. Shneiderman, B. Designing the user interface: strategies for effective human-computer interaction, Read-ing, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1987.

13. Sillitto, H.G., Martin J., Griego R., McKinney, D., Arnold, E., Godfrey, P., Dori, D., Krob, D. and Jackson, S. Envi-sioning Systems Engineering as a Transdisciplinary Venture. IS 2018, Washington, DC.

14. Standish Group. The COMPASS report, Forbes, 1995.

15. Weinberg, G.M., 1971. The Psychology of Computer Programming. New York, Dorset House Publishing.

16. Zonnenshain, A. & Harel, A. INCOSE Annual International Symposium, Seattle, 2015

☯ About the author

Avi Harel is a mathematician, who specialized in software engineering, systems engineering and human-factors engineering. Avi invented and developed the Ergolight toolkit for usability testing based on tracking and analysis of the HCI. Avi designed and developed methods and software for semi automated usability testing of Windows applications, and for statistical analysis of site visit. Avi’s principles for preventing friendly fire accidents and for designing trustable public alarms had been integrated in routines and procedures of the Israeli defense forces. Currently he is specializing in HSI engineering.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-4471-4338-3

http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470120126,descCd-tableOfContents.html


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The Dull Side of Systems EngineeringHanan Sylverman, VP Programs, plasan

[email protected]

☯ Where are we?The design characteristics of quality, reliability and maintainability are often insufficiently addressed during design and development. This translates to a product that its design seems to achieve the goals which focus on key performance features in the short term. However, the medium and long run experience shows many sus-tainment issues. This phenomenon is even more dominant when programs are schedule or budget constrained.

The symptoms and indicators of the above characteristic of development are failures of first article(s) or un-reliable operation. Furthermore, the customers seem to be “educated” to accept this as “facts of life”. They embedded understanding that the product they accept is not really fully developed lead them to request reliability growth phase as program add-on and/or service contracts to limit their exposure to maintenance budget overruns.

Needless to say, that the consequences are severe to both the supplier and customer and the cost of recovery to both and supplier reputation loss cannot be ignored. Stating the obvious, no matter how good the product performance is, if its downtime is big then the customer will soon be unhappy and its product life cycle cost (LCC) will overrun initial estimations. Expectations of the supplier to generate more future business driven by earlier success will quickly be put on hold or canceled. This is not a good way to run business!

The bottom line is that we don’t pay adequate design attention to quality, reliability and maintenance consid-erations and feature during the development. We fake it. The question is WHY!

☯ Why do we behave the way we do?The reasons are many.

The first to be blamed are usually tight schedule and budget limitations. But this is too obvious.

There are others. The halo effect – certain product features will always get everyone’s attention any feature that translates to how fast, how accurate, how light, how sharp, how easy etc. will always draw more attention during design then quality, MTBF, MTTR etc. This is true in all echelons – upper managers and engineers alike. Therefore, the later will always be in the shades and be considered unrewarding.

There are also objective difficulties. Evaluation and validation is not easy. In most cases there are no reliable modeling tool and tests are time consuming and expansive. It is not a simple task!

Lastly, there are organizational reasons. The designer’s accountability weakens when his responsibility towards the program ends during one of the program phase and he is not the owner of problems should these occur during the entire life of the program. Engineering departments do not maintain and develop relevant knowledge. It is kept in QA and ILS departments which do not mix well with engineering. Organizations do not enforce well integrated teamwork.

OPINION

mailto:hanans%40plasan.com?subject=


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☯ What can we do better?The first step towards a real change is awareness that a change is a MUST. Then we need to change work process to accommodate. Of cause without enforcement we will stay in square one.

This means one thing only. This is a task for management leadership, i.e. organization upper management, program managers and system engineers mainly.

Once leadership is committed, than different tools should be used. Work frames should include all disciplines in the program design team. They should interact on a daily manner and not just design review. Human re-sources should redefine personnel profile (example instead of quality engineer who understands in design we need a designer who understands quality). Proper training has to take place to being specific knowledge areas to all designers and engineers. While demanding accountability from the team members, rewarding and acknowledgement should play a role in changing behavior of engineers. And like all changes, measurement of improvement plays an important role assuring execution.

☯ SummaryWe don’t do well now. Although not simple, the reality can be changes. The change is critical for business growth. Don’t look the other way!


Hanan Sylverman is the VS Programs at Plasan.


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Human-System Integration: Better-placed Human Factors Engineering or a Missed Opportunity for a

New Discipline? Prof. Avi Parush, Technion

[email protected]

There is a need to integrate Human Factors Engineering (HFE) aspects and considerations in all stages of system design. One of the definitions of HFE is “the technical consideration and application of the integration of design criteria, psychological principles, human behavior, capabilities and limitations as they relate to the design, de-velopment, test, and evaluation of systems. The goal is to maximize the ability of users to perform at required levels through the elimination of design-induced errors, and to ensure that system operation, maintenance, and support are compatible with the total capabilities and limitations of users operating or maintaining those systems”. In order to have the human view and influence on system design, ‘Human Systems Integration’ (HSI) is defined as the interdisciplinary technical and management process for integrating human considerations within and across all system elements. It is a process of integrating the domains of human factors engineering, system safety, training, personnel, manpower (crewing), health hazards and survivability into each stage of the systems capability life cycle (needs, requirements, acquisition or deployment, operation or service, and disposal). The INCOSE definition of HSI is to bring human-centered disciplines and concerns into the system engineering process to improve the overall system design and performance. The approach of HSI started primarily in the military, air force, and navy, but spread to other domains such as healthcare and others.

The main motivation and driver to HSI seems to stem from the perception, and probably facts, that there were, and still are, too many barriers and obstacles to integrating the human view in all phases of system design. While this challenge is real, and many efforts have been made through many years to introduce HFE adequately and effectively into the system design and development, there may also be a missed opportunity in pursuing only this direction. The motivation drives a multi-disciplinary effort at best (even though it is sometimes erro-neously referred to as interdisciplinary). It facilitates the implementation and practice of the two disciplines in a combined and coordinated fashion to bring about the outcomes of this collaboration. There are definitely many advantages to HSI as a multi or cross disciplinary effort. Primarily in terms of a better and more effective integration of the human view into the system design process. However, in such an approach, each discipline still continues to practice its own methodologies and implement its own accumulated knowledge. In other words, it still lacks the true integration of best practices and insights from both disciplines. It may still lead to a silo-oriented process, which may be prone to misunderstandings, miscommunication, incoordination, and eventually possible degraded outcomes.

OPINION

mailto:aparush%40technion.ac.il%20?subject=


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What may be called for is a more true and rigorous interdisciplinary approach. Such an approach views the problems of systems design and development as one that cannot be solved only by the system engineering discipline, on the one hand, and not only by the human factors engineering discipline, on the other hand. In an interdisciplinary approach, the challenge of human-system integration can be addressed in a way that will bring about new understanding and new outcomes that would not be reached by simply linking two disciplines.

There is probably room to go beyond interdisciplinarity when it comes to HSI, and attempt a transdiciplinary approach. The strategy in such an approach is to break and cross disciplinary boundaries. In other words, some of the issues addressed by human factors engineering should be addressed by system engineering, and vice versa, some of the issued addressed by system engineering should also be addressed by human factors engineering. The systemic and holistic view and solution of issues would be the emergent aspect of a transdisciplinary approach to HSI. Taking an interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary approach to HSI calls for the synthesis and development of a new discipline. The challenge facing us now is to explore and define the topics and methodologies that could constitute such a discipline.


Prof. Avi Parush is a professor at the Industrial Engineering & Behavioral Sciences, Technion. His professional and academic career of over 35 years in human factors is devoted to influencing the design of workplaces and tools people use in order to make their lives easier, safer and more beneficial.


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Innovations in Systems Engineering as a Response to Scaling Up Challenge of Systems Complexity

Summary of the Gordon Center Seminar Day, January 15th, 2019Avigdor Zonnenshain, The Gordon Center for Systems Engineering, Technion [email protected]

The InterestThere is a great interest in innovative systems engineering for designing complex systems.

Seminar Agenda• Prof. David Saad, Aston University, UK - Optimization or Ruin - Infrastructure Use in a Smart World.

• Eran Reuveny - Very Large Scale Integrated Systems Engineering - The Framework & it’s Implementation.

• Prof. Dov Dori, TECHNION - OPCloud - A Collaborative Web-Based Modeling Environment for Agile Systems Engineering.

• Dr. Roee Diamant, Haifa University - Demonstrating Complex Problems Solving Through Models.

• Sharon Shoshany Tavory, Haifa University - Self Organizing of Systems Users for Creating New Value.

• Hezi Ben-Ari, RAFAEL - System of Systems Optimization Under Uncertainty.

• Michal Yohay, Elbit Systems - Lean Engineering Implementation Journey in Large Scale Multi-Disciplinary Organization.

• Eran Peleg, Metaphor Vision - Model Based Operational Simulation and it’s Influence on the Systems Requirements.

• Eran Gery, IBM - The Digital Twin - The Idea and it’s Implementation.

Main ConclusionsThis seminar day created a great interest (with the participation of about 300 people) in systems engineering, which can support the development, the design and the deployment of complex systems. These systems pose various challenges of great vareity of stakeholders and customers, ever changing requiements, advanced technologies, intensive software, big data, complex communication etc.

The speakers presented and suggested some of the approaches and methodologies to handle these complex-ities, such as optimization,the framework of Very Large Scale Integrated Systems Engineering, Model Based Systems Engineering,solving problems through models and simulations,self organizationof System of Systems’ Users and Digital Twin.

The 4th Industrial Revolution and the digital transformation offer some of the opportunities for solving these complex problems and challenges through embedding these advanced opportunities in the advanced and modern systems engineering. The Gordon Center is devoted to propmote this advanced thinking through these conferences and ongoing researches.

The presentations and pictures from this day can be found on line in site of the Gordon Center web site:

https://gordon-se.technion.ac.il/news-events/levin-day-15-1-19/

mailto:avigdorz100%40gmail.com?subject=

mailto:aparush%40technion.ac.il%20?subject=

https://gordon-se.technion.ac.il/news-events/levin-day-15-1-19/

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