INDI Tool

Ship-SHAPE NDI SELECTION TOOL (INDI)

STATUS: Currently Available

GENERAL OVERVIEW:
INDI is used to perform Human Systems Integration (HSI) evaluation of Non Development Items (NDI). INDI presents to the user three sets of questions about HSI aspects of a NDI being considered for use in a man-machine system being developed. These include fairly specific questions about characteristics of the proposed NDI and generally applicable human factors engineering questions that can be applied to a wide range of NDI devices. The range of answers to these questions available to the user is as follows:

Pass The item passes a given question. Its attributes with regard to the question are satisfactory.

Fail The item fails a given question. Its attributes with regard to the question are unsatisfactory.

Unresolved An answer cannot be supplied for a given question. The data are insufficient to reach a pass/fail decision.

N/A A given question is not applicable to the item.

When a set of answers to questions has been developed, INDI calculates a score for the item based on counting the various responses supplied by the user.

APPROPRIATE USES:
HSI inputs to Commercial Item Descriptions and HSI inputs to NDI Acquisition Program Requirements and documents, including procurement documents

EQUIPMENT REQUIRED:
o Apple® Macintosh running Microsoft Office 98.
o IBM PC or Clone running Windows 98.

INPUTS REQUIRED:
NDI descriptions

PROCESSING TECHNIQUES:
Resident in Hypercard

OUTPUT:
Word processing document containing results of NDI evaluation.

USES OF OUTPUT:
Evaluation of NDI, and conduct of a market survey.

STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT: In final development

VALIDATION: Not validated

COMMENTS: DoD 5000 documents specify use of commercial items and specifications as the first preference in system acquisition. Usability and safety of the NDI therefore become major considerations.