A New UK Defence Standard For Human Factors Integration (HFI)

Transcription

1 Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 2016 Annual Meeting 1736 A New UK Defence Standard For Human Factors Integration (HFI) Colin Corbridge 1, Mark Anthony 2, David McNeish 1 & Gareth Shaw 3 1 Defence Science & Technology Laboratory, MOD, UK 2 Defence Equipment and Support, MOD, UK 3 BAE Systems Defence Information, UK The development of a new UK Defence Standard for Human Factors Integration is described. This formed one element of an extensive updating of Human Factors Integration guidance within UK MOD. The Standard is to be used for contracts between UK MOD and industry suppliers for Human Factors Integration activities - integral to the development of new and existing military systems. The extant Standard, Defence Standard (2008), was deficient in a number of ways and was not well aligned with the evolving internal HFI guidance for MOD personnel. The new Standard, Defence Standard (2015), is primarily a process standard. It specifies, in the form of Human Factors Process Requirements, what HFI activities must be undertaken throughout the system lifecycle to manage the human related risks in the development of new systems across the seven HFI domains. It also includes a number of candidate Human Factors User and System Requirements which can be used to specify properties of the system itself. A collaborative approach to the development of the Standard ensured relatively few changes were required, following a period of public consultation, prior to the final version of the Standard being produced. þÿÿý INTRODUCTION Human Factors Integration (or Human Systems Integration (HSI) as it is known in the USA and a number of other countries) has been a part of UK MOD policy for over 25 years. It is defined as a systematic process for identifying, tracking and resolving human-related issues ensuring a balanced development of both technological and human aspects of capability (Defence Standardization, 2008). HFI within UK Defence acquisition is a management process with the aim of reducing project risk and improving solution quality, therefore leading to operational and organisational benefits (Defence Human Capability Science and Technology Centre, 2014). Within UK acquisition HFI addresses the management of human related risks across seven technical domains: manpower, personnel, training, human factors engineering, system safety, health hazard assessment, and social & organisational. The HFI management process sits above the detailed technical activities being undertaken within each of the domains. It seeks to identify and manage the human-related risks associated with each domain and to make trade-offs across domains to ensure the system developed meets its objectives - as specified in requirements and other documentation. Despite the passage of time since it was first adopted within UK Defence, it has not become established business as usual within acquisition. The HFI process is not well understood outside of the specialist HFI/HF practitioners in UK MOD and industry. This has resulted in HFI not being considered fully and woven into all programmes by UK Defence Capability sponsors; Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) Project delivery teams; or industry suppliers. A number of studies have been undertaken over the past few years aimed at understanding the barriers to effective application of HFI and recommended potential solutions. Some of the outputs and recommendations from the previous work have been implemented with varying degrees of success, others have not been attempted, and some have been overtaken by recent changes to the Defence operating models [Levine, 2011], or changes to the purpose of some key documents such as Defence Standards. One of the key findings of work to examine the barriers to adoption of HFI within the wider systems engineering community was the inadequacy of existing documentation. This included both internal HFI guidance for MOD Project sponsors and delivery teams and also documentation to support external contracting for HFI with industry. In 2013 the Engineering Group within DE&S responsible for HFI policy in the UK MOD initiated work, with the assistance of the UK Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL also part of UK MOD), to update both the internal guidance and external contracting via the extant Defence Standard (Defence Standardization, 2008). Much of the work to revise the material was contracted via the Defence Human Capability Science & Technology Centre (DHCSTC) to a group of HFI specialists from three companies, with overall direction resting with the UK MOD. In order to ensure the output from the work would meet the demands of both MOD and its industry suppliers a Steering Group was formed. The Steering Group contained representatives from MOD, academia (a Professor of systems engineering) and industry (a principal level HFI practitioner from industry and a principal consultant with experience of developing British and International Standards - both separate from those HFI specialists undertaking the detailed development of the HFI materials). The purpose of the Steering Group was to provide independent oversight of the work, review outputs from the work as it matured and to advise the MOD HFI policyholder, who had commissioned the work, on the direction of the programme as it evolved.

2 Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 2016 Annual Meeting 1737 As a final safeguard to ensure the revised Standard was fit for purpose, progress on the project was briefed at the UK MOD/Industry HFI Working Group. This meets quarterly, and contains a broad range of industry suppliers of HFI services from prime contractors to small and medium sized enterprises, and academics with roles in teaching HFI to civilian and military students. It served as valuable forum for critiquing ideas and gathering additional inputs to the development of the new Standard. Development of the internal MOD guidance was focused on a two part Joint Service Publication Joint Service Publication: 912 Human Factors Integration For Defence Systems (MOD, 2015): Part 1 being a high-level directive and Part 2 being guidance material. JSP 912 Part 1 mandates the process of HFI be applied to all UK Defence projects. Part 2 provides more detailed guidance concerning the responsibilities of MOD stakeholders to support the implementation of the HFI process and the activities they must undertake. This paper addresses in detail the issues associated with the development of the new UK Defence Standard for Human Factors Integration i.e. the mechanism for placing a contract between MOD and industry suppliers to undertake HFI as part of acquiring new Defence systems. Linkages between the changes to the internal guidance and the external contracting mechanism are elaborated where they inform the direction in which the new Standard evolved. PROBLEMS WITH THE EXTANT HFI STANDARD: DEFENCE STANDARD The existing UK Defence Standard for HFI, Defence Standard Human Factors for Designers of Systems (Defence Standardization, 2008) was structured in five parts: Part 0: Human Factors Integration - an introduction to the Human Factors Integration as the process by which the People Component of Operational Capability was integrated with the Equipment Component of Operational Capability to realise the objectives of the system. This part of the Standard was 104 pages long. Part 1: Overarching People Related Requirements contained a set of Level 1 requirements for Human Factors Integration. Eighty-five People Related Requirements (PRRs), which were nominally focused on the process of Human Factors Integration, were included in this section of the Standard. Part 1 was 41 pages in length. Part 2: Particular People Related Requirements contained more detailed requirements: 68 at Level 2 and 360 at Level 3. These requirements focused on the technical aspects of the system being developed rather than the HFI process per se. This part of the Standard was 93 pages in length. Part 3: Technical Guidance this part of the Standard comprised 682 pages of material divided into 15 sections each describing particular technical areas of human factors e.g. people characteristics (section 9) and work equipment (section 15). Part 4: HFI Methods, Tools & Techniques described a wide range of human factors techniques from questionnaires to workload assessment techniques. This part of the Standard was 119 pages in length. As can be inferred from the brief outline of the Standard provided above, a number of limitations and deficiencies with the extant version were becoming increasingly evident to users from within both MOD and industry. These were preventing the Standard s effective application in contracts between UK MOD and its suppliers. These deficiencies included: a) The Standard was excessively long (over 1000 pages) and contained material which duplicated material which could be found in textbooks, particularly in Parts 3 and 4. b) It did not reference a common HFI process which both MOD and industry were expected to follow as no such common process had been fully defined in internal guidance for MOD personnel when the Standard was created. c) The Standard focused on the main contract between UK MOD and industry suppliers to deliver the system with the focus on industry as the solution provider. The Standard was aimed at the mid-point of the system life-cycle (and beyond) when the contract was placed for full development of the system. It therefore omitted the very important early phases of the life-cycle where HFI can be more costeffectively applied to design and development. d) It contained requirements at 3 levels but these were not well structured making it difficult to call up the Standard appropriately in contracts. The structuring of the requirements blurred the distinction between: the top-level HFI management process; the detailed technical activities or processes undertaken within each domain to deliver the solution; and the attributes of the solution itself i.e. the system being developed or the product. As a consequence the requirements were difficult to use effectively within contracts. e) The technical requirements contained within Parts 1 and 2 of the Standard were not linked effectively to the underpinning information contained in Part 3. f) A number of sections of the Standard were very dated and had failed to keep pace with developments in technology, for example the Technical Guidance relating to Human Computer Interfaces and Interaction in Part 3. g) Any proposed update of material, even guidance, would necessitate an up-issue of the Standard, requiring contractors to assess the impact of the changes on their projects, thus adding costs to projects. In view of the significant limitations inherent in the existing Standard a programme of work was initiated to revise it, as described below.

3 Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 2016 Annual Meeting DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW STANDARD Work to develop the new Standard was shaped by a number of specific objectives including: Reduction in size of the Standard. The large volume of material in the Standard made it difficult to maintain. At the outset it was decided that much of the material contained in existing Part 3, Technical Guidance would be migrated to a series of separate Technical Guides. These would then be individually updated as required. Similarly much of the material in Part 4, HFI Methods, Tools & Techniques, was to be removed as it was available from other sources (e.g. Stanton et al, 2005). The Standard should be focused on the HFI process itself i.e. what activities needed to be undertaken to manage the human related risks at the project level across the seven HFI domains. The Standard was not to be focused on the individual technical activities conducted within each of the domains, so for example in the case of the Human Factors Engineering domain it would not define details of how to assess Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI). The HFI process around which the Standard was developed was to be the same as the internal guidance to MOD (i.e. JSP 912) and it was to cover the full life-cycle of the system from initial Concept development through to In-Service and Disposal. The number of requirements contained in the Standard should be reduced and they should be clearly separated into process requirements and a hierarchy of product requirements. In addition, the revisions to the Standard had the wider aims of: aligning Human Factors Integration more closely with systems engineering; increasing the Standard s utility in contracting; and reducing duplication across a wider documentation suite. Work to realise the new Standard began with the development of a reference HFI process which was the foundation for both the Standard and the internal guidance, i.e. JSP 912. Figure 1 shows the high level process model with six HFI process stages mapped onto: the MOD acquisition Concept, Assessment, Demonstration, Manufacture, In-Service & Disposal (CADMID) life-cycle; a generic lifecycle, adapted from ISO/IEC (ISO, 2008); and key contractual activities for placing a contract with industry suppliers to deliver the solution. The core HFI process stages begin with HFI-1.0 User Need Definition which is the earliest phase of the lifecycle during which the military capability need is identified. HFI-2.0 System Requirements Definition elaborates the user need into a set of formal requirements defining the system to be acquired. Subsequent phases, HFI-3.0 Assess Tenders to HFI6.0 In-Service Feedback, detail the HFI activities undertaken as a contract is placed with a supplier to deliver a system to meet the requirements. These cover the Demonstration, Manufacture and In-Service phases of the system life-cycle. It is these phases which the extant Standard, Def Stan was developed to provide contract support for For each of the six HFI process stages (HFI-1.0 to HFI-6.0) detailed process maps containing information about the activities that should be undertaken within each stage were prepared. Figure 1: HFI Process stages mapped to the system lifecycle and acquisition phases Figure 2 shows each of the 8 process steps within HFI-1.0 User Need Definition. For each step, detailed guidance was developed to describe what HFI activities should be undertaken and who was responsible for ensuring the activities were completed. The process maps also included information on the inputs and outputs to each process stage as per Figure 2. Figure 2: HFI Process stage 1.0 User Need Definition As the process maps were developed it became clear that, due to the volume of material being generated and the need for some form of interactive presentation to assist users in assimilating the process information, it would not be sensible to include all the material in the revised Standard. A decision was therefore made to create a new web-based repository of information, which would be accessible by MOD and industry suppliers, to support use of the revised Standard. This on-line resource was designated the Human Factors Integration Management System (HuFIMS). The intention is that use of the new Standard is supported by reference to HuFIMS for detailed process information and related materials.

4 Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 2016 Annual Meeting 1739 Locating the substantive volume of process information within HuFIMs allowed for the development of a revised Standard which was concise, and contained key Human Factors Process Requirements (HFPRs) defining what HFI activities must be undertaken at each stage/step in the lifecycle. An example HFPR is The human component of Capability shall be reflected in the User Requirement Document (HFPR 1.4). The primary purpose of the revised Standard is to provide a set of requirements which define the HFI process and which can form a contract between MOD and the industry suppliers. In the early parts of the lifecycle, before a contract is placed to deliver the final system, the HFI activities are the responsibility of MOD. However in some cases, typically due personnel resource constraints, MOD may employ a supplier as a customer friend to undertake these activities on MOD s behalf. Later in the lifecycle when a contract is placed with a supplier for delivery of the final system, the HFI activities will be the responsibility of the system supplier termed the solution provider. The new Standard supports contracts between MOD and suppliers acting as customer friends for HFI early in the lifecycle and contracts between MOD and suppliers developing the solution in which HFI is part of the systems engineering processes necessary to deliver the solution. In addition to the HFPRs the revised Standard also contains a set of candidate human factors technical requirements that can be used to define properties of the capability and system being developed ( product requirements). These are termed Human Factors User Requirements (HFURs) and Human Factors System Requirements (HFSRs) respectively. At the top level (Level 1) of the HFURs is the Single Statement of User Need (SSUN) as follows: The Capability shall integrate people to achieve the required performance under all conditions of use in accordance with the Target Audience Description (TAD), Concept of Employment (CONEMP) and Concept of Use (CONUSE). An example of a second level (Level 2) HFUR is The Capability shall accommodate human characteristics and attributes (HFUR-1). The HFSRs sit below the HFURs and define the system required to meet the Capability need outlined in the HFURs. One of the corresponding, lower level, HFSRs is The system shall accommodate the anthropometric and physical characteristics of the specified user population (including relevant clothing corrections) (HFSR-1.1). A second is The system shall accommodate the sensory characteristics of the specified user population (HFSR-1.2). The requirements are therefore structured hierarchically from the SSUN and HFURs down to the HFSRs. The aim of including these types of product requirements is to provide MOD acquirers and industry suppliers with a potential set of requirements defining in generic terms the human component of capability and the human elements of the system. The challenge was to define a set of requirements which were applicable to the full range of capabilities and systems which UK MOD might wish to acquire. It is planned that more detailed technical system requirements will be contained in the series of Technical Guides as noted previously. Again the requirements within the Technical Guides will be linked to, and traceable back to the HFSRs and ultimately the HFURs and SSUN. The revised Standard was retitled Defence Standard : Human Factors Integration for Defence Systems (Def Stan, 2015) and comprised four parts as follows: 1) Part 0: Contracting for Human Factors Integration in Defence Systems - provides an introduction to HFI and a description of the method for MOD to contract with the supplier, using Def Stan as the contracting document (13 pages); 2) Part 1: Early Lifecycle Human Factors Process Requirements - provides the HFPRs to be applied to all MOD projects that contain a human element. It focuses on those activities to be conducted by MOD or a supplier acting in the role of customer friend. (As noted above a customer friend is a Supplier who is engaged by MOD to undertake services on their behalf. Typically, the customer friend helps define requirements or evaluates the technical solutions of third parties - such as the supplier of the system being acquired) (14 pages); 3) Part 2: Human Factors Process Requirements for the solution provider HFPRs to be applied to all MOD projects that contain a human element. It focuses on those activities to be conducted by the solution provider from the Assessment phase of the CADMID lifecycle onwards i.e. the point at which MOD contracts with the solution provider to deliver the system (12 pages); 4) Part 3: Human Factors System Requirements - provides both HFURs and HFSRs that can be used by the MOD to facilitate the integration of HF within the system design and assure the integration of HF from requirements to acceptance (28 pages). The intent of Def Stan as a whole is to make it easier for MOD to contract for HFI and remove ambiguity for both MOD and industry in ensuring that the system design reflects the requirement for HF. This will support the definition of appropriate Statements of Requirements, Statements Of Work, Technical Specifications and the corresponding verification and validation processes. FORMAL PUBLIC CONSULTATION As part of the development of Defence Standards the body responsible for publishing, UK Defence Standardization, publishes new and revised draft Defence Standards for public comment prior to formal issue. In September 2015 the revised Standard identified as Def Stan Human Factors Integration for Defence Systems (Defence Standardization, 2015) was published on-line, as a draft, for a six week consultation period.

5 Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 2016 Annual Meeting 1740 A total of 220 comments were received from 13 individuals representing small and large Defence suppliers together with academia. None of the comments required substantial revisions to the overall structure of the document and many related to relatively minor changes in wording. Only 18 comments were rated as requiring a high level of effort to address them i.e. it was estimated that it would take over an hour s effort to effect the suggested changes. In part the relatively few comments received necessitating substantive changes to the document, reflected the diligence of the Steering Group in reviewing project progress and draft outputs from the work. It also reflected the valuable input from human factors professionals who attended the meetings of the UK MOD/Industry Working Group at which the developments leading to the draft Standard were reviewed indepth on an ongoing basis. In early January 2016 an updated version of the Standard, in which the comments from the public consultation had been sentenced and appropriately addressed, was supplied to UK Defence Standardization. The new UK Defence Standard Human Factors Integration for Defence Systems (2016) was published in February CONCLUSIONS Within UK Defence, HFI policy and guidance has been radically reshaped with new internal guidance for MOD and a revised, concise Defence Standard for contracting HFI externally with industry. The new, four part, Defence Standard , Human Factors Integration for Defence Systems, is a fundamental change to contracting for HFI within UK Defence. It is less than one tenth the size of the document it replaces and is focused on contracting for the HFI process, and what industry must do to manage the human related risks across the seven HFI domains. What must be done is expressed as a set of HFPRs. The Standard is not prescriptive about how these activities should be conducted. The new Standard covers the full system lifecycle from concept to disposal. HFI activities that must be conducted early in the lifecycle are the responsibility of MOD. Where resources are not available within MOD to undertake these activities the Standard provides HFPRs which can be used to contract for a supplier, in the role of customer friend to undertake those activities on behalf of MOD. Later in the lifecycle the Standard supports contracting with the supplier acting as solution provider to deliver the system, using HFPRs appropriate to the later lifecycle stages. The Standard also includes a set of generic HF User and System requirements which can be used as starting point for developing specific requirements for particular capabilities and the acquisition of these capabilities in the form of systems solutions (i.e. products) developed by industry solution providers. Extensive consultation with Human Factors specialists in UK MOD and industry occurred throughout the development of the Standard. As a consequence, when the draft version was made available for public comment in late 2015 few significant revisions were required to the document prior to the final revised version being submitted to UK Defence Standardization for publication. REFERENCES Defence Human Capability Science and Technology Centre, (2014) Project Risk and Cost Reduction Through Human Factors Integration, Version 1. November Levine, Lord of Portsoken, MBE. (2011) Defence Reform: An independent report into the structure and management of the Ministry of Defence. The Stationary Office, June International Organization for Standardization (2008) ISO/IEC 15288:2008 Systems and software engineering System life cycle processes. Ministry of Defence (2015) Joint Service Publication 912: Human Factors Integration For Defence Systems, V1.0 October UK Defence Standardization (2008) Defence Standard Human Factors for Designers of Systems, May UK Defence Standardization (2015) Def Stan Human Factors Integration for Defence Systems, Public Comment Draft, Issue 1, Version 1.0, September UK Defence Standardization (2016) Def Stan Human Factors Integration for Defence Systems, Issue No 1 dated 05/02/2016. Stanton, N. A., Salmon, P. M., Walker, G. H., Baber, C. and Jenkins, D. P. (2005) Human Factors Methods A Practical Guide for Engineering and Design. Ashgate: Aldershot, UK. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The important role of Mr Ian Harryman, as the policy owner for HFI within DE&S, in the successful realization of the new Standard is recognized and appreciated by the authors. The authors wish to acknowledge the key technical contributions made by Mr Steven Harmer (BAE Systems), Mr Tim Hughes (BAE Systems), Mr Christopher Kelly (Symbiotics) and Ms Pamela Newman (Fraser-Nash) to the development of the revised Standard and other guidance materials. The support of the following members of the Steering Group is gratefully acknowledged: Professor Michael Henshaw (Loughborough University), Mr Tom Stewart (System Concepts) and Mr Christopher Vance (MBDA). The authors would like thank all those members of the UK Human Factors community who supplied considered and highly informative comments as part of the development of the Standard both via the UK MOD/Industry HFI Working Group and the public consultation on the draft Standard. Content includes material subject to Crown copyright (2016), Dstl. This material is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit: or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk