Human factors and cost benefits
1.4 Human factors costs and pay-offs
hit probabilities were increased to the extent that considerably fewer missiles were needed during training.
• A multi-million dollar investment in a rollover protection cage for a wheeled vehicle fleet led to a 98 per cent reduction in non-fatal injuries, and in excess of 90 per cent reduction in vehicle damage costs.
Considerably more detail about MANPRINT and its United Kingdom analogue (Human Factors Integration) is given in Chapter 2. In particular this chapter also provides information on a UK MoD research study of some of thequalitativebenefits of HFI.
But how should we consider the benefits of Human Factors activities themselves?
Can these be quantified? More importantly, can we examine the effects of differential investment in various Human Factors activities and their impact upon the outcome of an equipment development programme? Work being carried out under the auspices of the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has examined Human Factors Assess- ments as carried out during the Investment Analysis process itself [9]. This work has examined the human-system performance contribution to overall programme benefits and, most importantly, the estimated costs associated with mitigating human factors risks and with conducting the overall engineering programme support. In this way the human factors components related to benefits, risks and costs can all be examined in an integrated manner within the investment analysis process as a whole.
Similar work has been carried out within the UK. The introduction of the HFI methodology within the MoD equipment acquisition system has undoubtedly con- tributed greatly to improvements in military operational effectiveness and reductions in whole-life and performance risks. However, until fairly recently there has only been limited quantitative data to allow comparative judgements to be made about the success of differential Balance of Investment (BOI) strategies within equipment procurement. A research study carried out in the period 1999–2001 examined Human Factors BOI strategies within equipment procurement, and developed an Influence Model of HFI activities to describe the interactive influences of HFI upon the outcome of a system procurement [10].
This study examined and quantified, for the first time, the linkages between HFI and the costs and benefits associated with a military system, and addressed ways of modelling the link between investment in HFI and the outcome, in terms of equip- ment acquisition consequences, of changes in these investment strategies. With this approach the interactive HFI ‘Influence Diagrams’ for a generic Light Anti-Armour Weapon (LAW) system were successfully elicited in a ‘workshop-style forum’ with appropriate Operational Analysis (OA) and HF subject matter experts. These Influ- ence Diagrams were used to build a System Dynamics (SD) model in order to examine the dynamic interactions between Balance of Investment options and the resultant military capability. This was developed using the commercially available modelling tool POWERSIM to produce a stock-flow diagram. In the stock-flow diagram the measurable quantities (including HF issues such as hazard concerns, safety issues, as well as financial budgets, sample charge-out rates, etc.) were clearly delineated as separate, but linked, flows. Additional factors needed to allow computation of rates of change were also included.
The results illustrated the significant potential of a dynamic interaction between HFI investment options (BOI strategies) and the impact of this upon the result- ing ‘military capability’. In particular, influence diagrams were constructed for the generic LAW system so as to represent the continuous and interactive application of investment in HF specialist activity for each of the six HFI domains (Manpower, Personnel, Training, Human Factors Engineering, System Safety and Health Hazard Assessment). See Chapter 2 for a more detailed exposition of these ‘domains’.
The impact upon military capability was expressed by means of a shortfall in the number of systems operating following the procurement programme. No specific meaning was attached to the results for the ‘exemplar’ system (a LAW system) beyond showing that the model produced an appropriate response when input data are changed and the data were considered to be indicative only. Extracts from the results are shown below.
Thebaseline condition was considered to be the optimum funding of HFI effort whereby the outcome was to resolve all the known HF issues of concern for each domain. The details and the outcome of this were as follows:
Length of development programme=65 months
Number of LAW systems required for development and fielding=200.
Withreduction in funding of effort within Hazard and Safety domains by 90 per cent the details and outcome were as follows:
Length of development programme=75 months (i.e. an extra 10 months)
Number of LAW systems required for development and fielding=228 (i.e. an extra 28 systems).
Withreduction in funding of effort within the Training Domain by 70 per centthe details and outcome were as follows:
Length of development programme=100 months (i.e. an extra 35 months above the baseline condition)
Number of LAW systems required for development and fielding=200.
It is clear that variations from the baseline vividly demonstrated that insufficient funding for the HF activities could lead to a requirement for greatly increased numbers of fielded systems, and incur very considerable delays before these systems could be fully supported by appropriate personnel. All these could of course be translated into considerable increases in overall acquisition costs. Expressing this in terms of investment strategies, it is obvious that altering the differential BOI strategies for HFI had a marked impact or ‘leverage’ upon project costs. Apparent savings taken early on (i.e. reductions in funding for HF activities) resulted in dramatically increased costs brought about by the increased numbers of fielded systems required or the increased programme lengths or both. This was a dramatic demonstration of the quantitative impact of an HFI programme upon equipment acquisition and project costs. Further information about HFI is contained within Chapter 2.