Identification of resilience factors in rail engineering work

This paper discusses an ongoing project that aims at improving the potential for resilience of a system responsible for the planning of rail engineering work delivery. It focuses on the use of a human factors based approach as a way to achieve this end. In particular, the paper discusses the initial data collected by means of interviews and how this process gave way to a two fold goal: Understanding how the planning process works in reality and identifying any critical aspects of the system from a Resilience Engineering perspective. Given the nature of the process under study, information flows and communication issues have been given particular attention throughout the data collection and analysis stages. Initial data confirms that the planning process is greatly reliant on the capability of people using their knowledge and skills to communicate in a dynamic informational environment. Finally, the added value of the interviews is discussed from a human factors perspective and as a mean towards the aim of better understanding resilience in rail engineering planning.

An observational study of how objects support engineering design thinking and communication : implications for the design of tangible media

There has been an increasing interest in objects within the HCI field particularly with a view to designing tangible interfaces. However, little is known about how people make sense of objects and how objects support thinking. This paper presents a study of groups of engineers using physical objects to prototype designs, and articulates the roles that physical objects play in supporting their design thinking and communications. The study finds that design thinking is heavily dependent upon physical objects, that designers are active and opportunistic in seeking out physical props and that the interpretation and use of an object depends heavily on the activity. The paper discusses the trade-offs that designers make between speed and accuracy of models, and specificity and generality in choice of representations. Implications for design of tangible interfaces are discussed.

The "human factor" in DFM

With a focus on understanding the overall effect of DFM on human factors aspects, DFM/DFA literature was systematically searched, reviewed and critically assessed. The influence of DFM on work organization is analysed using examples from literature, with the aim of quantifying consequences on work performance, job satisfaction and human work load where possible. It is also shown that job enlargement through DFM tasks increases the workload for the Product Designer, who is on the critical path of the engineering process. Without taking measures to counterbalance this higher workload of the Product Designer, DFM projects in complex engineering environments are likely to fail.

Digital human modelling for vehicle design and manufacturing

Digital human modelling (DHM) has today matured from research into industrial application. In the automotive domain, DHM has become a commonly used tool in virtual prototyping and human-centred product design. While this generation of DHM supports the ergonomic evaluation of new vehicle design during early design stages of the product, by modelling anthropometry, posture, motion or predicting discomfort, the future of DHM will be dominated by CAE methods, realistic 3D design, and musculoskeletal and soft tissue modelling down to the micro-scale of molecular activity within single muscle fibres. As a driving force for DHM development, the automotive industry has traditionally used human models in the manufacturing sector (production ergonomics, e.g. assembly) and the engineering sector (product ergonomics, e.g. safety, packaging). In product ergonomics applications, DHM share many common characteristics, creating a unique subset of DHM. These models are optimised for a seated posture, interface to a vehicle seat through standardised methods and provide linkages to vehicle controls. As a tool, they need to interface with other analytic instruments and integrate into complex CAD/CAE environments. Important aspects of current DHM research are functional analysis, model integration and task simulation. Digital (virtual, analytic) prototypes or digital mock-ups (DMU) provide expanded support for testing and verification and consider task-dependent performance and motion. Beyond rigid body mechanics, soft tissue modelling is evolving to become standard in future DHM. When addressing advanced issues beyond the physical domain, for example anthropometry and biomechanics, modelling of human behaviours and skills is also integrated into DHM. Latest developments include a more comprehensive approach through implementing perceptual, cognitive and performance models, representing human behaviour on a non-physiologic level. Through integration of algorithms from the artificial intelligence domain, a vision of the virtual human is emerging.

Preface to special issue on digital human modelling for vehicle design and manufacturing

The automotive industry has been the focus of digital human modeling (DHM) research and application for many years. In the highly competitive marketplace for personal transportation, the desire to improve the customer’s experience has driven extensive research in both the physical and cognitive interaction between the vehicle and its occupants. Human models provide vehicle designers with tools to view and analyze product interactions before the first prototypes are built, potentially improving the design while reducing cost and development time. The focus of DHM research and applications began with prediction and representation of static postures for purposes of driver workstation layout, including assessments of seat adjustment ranges and exterior vision. Now DHMs are used for seat design and assessment of driver reach and ingress/egress. DHMs and related simulation tools are expanding into the cognitive domain, with computational models of perception and motion, and into the dynamic domain with models of physical responses to ride and vibration. Moreover, DHMs are now widely used to analyze the ergonomics of vehicle assembly tasks. In this case, the analysis aims to determine whether workers can be expected to complete the tasks safely and with good quality. This preface provides a review of the literature to provide context for the nine new papers presented in this special issue.

Human-centric process-aware information systems (HC-PAIS)

Process-Aware Information Systems (PAIS) support organizations in managing and automating their processes. A full automation of processes is in particular industries, such as service-oriented markets, not practicable. The integration of humans in PAIS is necessary to manage and perform processes that require human capabilities, judg- ments and decisions. A challenge of interdisciplinary PAIS research is to provide concepts and solutions that support human integration in PAIS and human orientation of PAIS in a way that provably increase the PAIS users' satisfaction and motivation with working with the Human-Centric Process Aware Information System (HC-PAIS) and consequently in uence users' performance of tasks. This work is an initial step of research that aims at providing a definition of Human-Centric Process Aware Information Systems (HC-PAIS) and future research challenges of HC-PAIS. Results of focus group research are presented.

Towards a capabilities database to inform inclusive design : Experimental investigation of effective survey-based predictors of human-product interaction

A key issue in the field of inclusive design is the ability to provide designers with an understanding of people's range of capabilities. Since it is not feasible to assess product interactions with a large sample, this paper assesses a range of proxy measures of design-relevant capabilities. It describes a study that was conducted to identify which measures provide the best prediction of people's abilities to use a range of products. A detailed investigation with 100 respondents aged 50-80 years was undertaken to examine how they manage typical household products. Predictor variables included self-report and performance measures across a variety of capabilities (vision, hearing, dexterity and cognitive function), component activities used in product interactions (e.g. using a remote control, touch screen) and psychological characteristics (e.g. self-efficacy, confidence with using electronic devices). Results showed, as expected, a higher prevalence of visual, hearing, dexterity, cognitive and product interaction difficulties in the 65-80 age group. Regression analyses showed that, in addition to age, performance measures of vision (acuity, contrast sensitivity) and hearing (hearing threshold) and self-report and performance measures of component activities are strong predictors of successful product interactions. These findings will guide the choice of measures to be used in a subsequent national survey of design-relevant capabilities, which will lead to the creation of a capability database. This will be converted into a tool for designers to understand the implications of their design decisions, so that they can design products in a more inclusive way.

Biomechanical aspects of seating comfort in vehicle seating package engineering

In this paper, problems are described which are related to the ergonomic assessment of vehicle package design in vehicle systems engineering. The traditional approach, using questionnaire techniques for a subjective assessment of comfort related to package design, is compared to a biomechanical approach. An example is given for ingress design. The biomechanical approach is based upon objective postural data. The experimental setup for the study is described and methods used for the biomechanical analysis are explained. Because the biomechanic assessment requires not only a complex experimental setup but also time consuming data processing, a systematic reduction and preparation of biomechanic data for classification with an Artificial Neural Network significantly improves the economy of the biomechanical method.

The development of an advanced ship evacuation simulation software product and associated large scale testing facility for the collection of human shipboard behaviour data

When designing a new passenger ship or modifying an existing design, how do we ensure that the proposed design and crew emergency procedures are safe from an evacuation point of view? In the wake of major maritime disasters such as the Herald of Free Enterprise and the Estonia and in light of the growth in the numbers of high density, high-speed ferries and large capacity cruise ships, issues concerned with the evacuation of passengers and crew at sea are receiving renewed interest. In the maritime industry, ship evacuation models offer the promise to quickly and efficiently bring evacuation considerations into the design phase, while the ship is "on the drawing board". maritimeEXODUS-winner of the BCS, CITIS and RINA awards - is such a model. Features such as the ability to realistically simulate human response to fire, the capability to model human performance in heeled orientations, a virtual reality environment that produces realistic visualisations of the modelled scenarios and with an integrated abandonment model, make maritimeEXODUS a truly unique tool for assessing the evacuation capabilities of all types of vessels under a variety of conditions. This paper describes the maritimeEXODUS model, the SHEBA facility from which data concerning passenger/crew performance in conditions of heel is derived and an example application demonstrating the models use in performing an evacuation analysis for a large passenger ship partially based on the requirements of MSC circular 1033.

Understanding safety and production risks in rail engineering planning and protection

Much of the published human factors work on risk is to do with safety and within this is concerned with prediction and analysis of human error and with human reliability assessment. Less has been published on human factors contributions to understanding and managing project, business, engineering and other forms of risk and still less jointly assessing risk to do with broad issues of ‘safety’ and broad issues of ‘production’ or ‘performance’. This paper contains a general commentary on human factors and assessment of risk of various kinds, in the context of the aims of ergonomics and concerns about being too risk averse. The paper then describes a specific project, in rail engineering, where the notion of a human factors case has been employed to analyse engineering functions and related human factors issues. A human factors issues register for potential system disturbances has been developed, prior to a human factors risk assessment, which jointly covers safety and production (engineering delivery) concerns. The paper concludes with a commentary on the potential relevance of a resilience engineering perspective to understanding rail engineering systems risk. Design, planning and management of complex systems will increasingly have to address the issue of making trade-offs between safety and production, and ergonomics should be central to this. The paper addresses the relevant issues and does so in an under-published domain – rail systems engineering work.

Experimental Evaluation of the Influence of Human-Structure Interaction for Vibration Serviceability

The effects of human-structure interaction on the dynamic performance of occupied structures have long been observed. The inclusion of the effects of human-structure interaction is important to ensure that the dynamic response of a structure is not overestimated. Previous observations, both in service and in the laboratory, have yielded results indicating that the effects are dependent on the natural frequency of the structure, the posture of the occupants, and the mass ratio of the occupants to the structure. These results are noteworthy, but are limited in their application,because the data are sparse and are only pertinent to a specific set of characteristics identified in a given study. To examine these characteristics simultaneously and consistently, an experimental test structure was designed with variable properties to replicate a variety of configurations within a controlled setting focusing on the effects of passive occupants. Experimental modal analysis techniques were employed to both the empty and occupied conditions of the structure and the dynamic properties associated with each condition were compared. Results similar to previous investigations were observed, including both an increase and a decrease in natural frequency of the occupied structure with respect to the empty structure, as well as the identification of a second mode of vibration. The damping of the combined system was higher for all configurations. Overall, this study provides a broad data set representing a wide array of configurations. The experimental results of this study were used to assess current recommendations for the dynamic properties of a crowd to analytically predict the effects of human-structure interaction. The experimental results were used to select a set of properties for passive, standing occupants and develop a new model that can more accurately represent the behavior of the human-structure system as experimentally measured in this study.

Evaluation of factors affecting speed perception in a driving simulator

The present study was conducted to determine the effects of different variables on the perception of vehicle speeds in a driving simulator. The motivations of the study include validation of the Michigan Technological University Human Factors and Systems Lab driving simulator, obtaining a better understanding of what influences speed perception in a virtual environment, and how to improve speed perception in future simulations involving driver performance measures. Using a fixed base driving simulator, two experiments were conducted, the first to evaluate the effects of subject gender, roadway orientation, field of view, barriers along the roadway, opposing traffic speed, and subject speed judgment strategies on speed estimation, and the second to evaluate all of these variables as well as feedback training through use of the speedometer during a practice run. A mixed procedure model (mixed model ANOVA) in SAS® 9.2 was used to determine the significance of these variables in relation to subject speed estimates, as there were both between and within subject variables analyzed. It was found that subject gender, roadway orientation, feedback training, and the type of judgment strategy all significantly affect speed perception. By using curved roadways, feedback training, and speed judgment strategies including road lines, speed limit experience, and feedback training, speed perception in a driving simulator was found to be significantly improved.

Emerging of human factor in risk analysis of home care service

Risk management in healthcare represents a group of various complex actions, implemented to improve the quality of healthcare services and guarantee the patients safety. Risks cannot be eliminated, but it can be controlled with different risk assessment methods derived from industrial applications and among these the Failure Mode Effect and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) is a largely used methodology. The main purpose of this work is the analysis of failure modes of the Home Care (HC) service provided by local healthcare unit of Naples (ASL NA1) to focus attention on human and non human factors according to the organization framework selected by WHO. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.

Capability measurement for Inclusive Design

Understanding users' capabilities, needs and expectations is key to the domain of Inclusive Design. Much of the work in the field could be informed and further strengthened by clear, valid and representative data covering the full range of people's capabilities. This article reviews existing data sets and identifies the challenges inherent in measuring capability in a manner that is informative for work in Inclusive Design. The need for a design-relevant capability data set is identified and consideration is given to a variety of capability construct operationalisation issues including questions associated with self-report and performance measures, sampling and the appropriate granularity of measures. The need for further experimental work is identified and a programme of research designed to culminate in the design of a valid and reliable capability survey is described.