Human System Integration (HSI) is the systematic use of knowledge to achieve compatibility in the design of interactive systems of people, machines, and environments to ensure their effectiveness, safety, and ease of performance. The term covers all biomedical and psychosocial considerations. It includes, but is not limited to, principles and applications in the areas of human factors engineering, personnel selection, training, life support, job performance aids, and human performance evaluation. Human factors engineering requirements are established to develop effective human-machine interfaces, and minimize or eliminate system characteristics that require extensive cognitive, physical, or sensory skills; require excessive training or workload for intensive tasks; or result in frequent or critical errors or safety/health hazards. Table 1 identifies factors that are frequently considered during design development. The capabilities and limitations of the operator, maintainer, trainer, and other support personnel must be identified prior to program initiation and refined during the development process.
Table 1. -- Common Human Characteristics Associated With Human Factors
| Human Factors | Human Characteristics |
| Anthropometric Factors | Human Physical Dimensions, Body Posture, Repetitive Motion, Physical Interface |
| Sensory Factors | Hearing, Vision, Touch, Balance |
| Cognitive Factors | Mental Ability, Skills, Decision Making, Training Requirements |
| Psychological Factors | Human Needs, Attitudes, Expectations, Motivations |
| Physiological Factors | Human Reactions to Environments, Strength (lifts, grip, carrying, etc.), Endurance |
1.1.1 References
1.1.1.1 DoD 5000.2R References
DoD 5000.2R identified the requirements for HSI in system acquisition in two sections, system support, and system design.
In section C2.8.5 under system support, the regulation requires that the PMshall pursue HSI initiatives to optimize total system performance and minimize TOC. The PM shall integrate manpower, personnel, training, safety and occupational health, habitability, human factors, and personnel survivability considerations into the acquisition process. The support strategy shall identify responsibilities, describe the technical and management approach for meeting HSI requirements, and summarize major elements of the associated training system. DoD 5000.2R, in section C5.2.3.5.9 requires the PM shall initiate a comprehensive strategy for HSI early in the acquisition process to minimize ownership costs and ensure that the system is built to accommodate the human performance characteristics of the user population that will operate, maintain, and support the system. The PM shall work with the manpower, personnel, training, safety and occupational health, habitability, survivability, and human factors engineering (HFE) communities to translate the HSI thresholds and objectives in the ORD into quantifiable and measurable system requirements. The PM shall include these requirements in specifications, the Test and Evaluation Master Plan (TEMP), and other program documentation, as appropriate, and use them to address HSI in the statement of work and contract. The PM shall identify any HSI-related schedule or cost issues that could adversely impact program execution.
1.1.2 The HSI Process
Human Systems Integration (HSI) technology includes the methods, models, hardware, software, firmware, courseware, information management techniques, operating procedures, documentation, system design features, and data for integrating the human into a military system. The HSI process is predicated on the technological opportunities associated with:
defining and designing for the role of the human in complex systems:
simulation and modeling of crew workloads for manning reduction:
reducing workloads and manning levels:
knowledge generation:
advanced human-machine interfaces through human-centered design:
ship design methods and data;
training technology
techniques to enhance shipboard productivity
techniques for improving the quality of life at sea - with attention to the quality of services and facilities afforded the crew with respect to habitability, medical care, administrative and personal support, environment control, personal safety, cultural and educational opportunities, and physical security to achieve the objective of reduced life cycle cost with improved crew performance, productivity, and safety. Major areas for consideration in improving quality of life at-sea include:
This guide addresses the application of HSI methods and data, through the standardized and formalized HSI process, to the manning of combatant and Sealift ships, and the performance, training, and safety of ships' crews.
Basically, application of HSI to ships must address the requirements described in the appropriate sections of DoD 5000.2. The major requirements to be imposed on HSI, which permeate the 5000 series, are: 1) human performance considerations and requirements must influence system design; 2) HSI must have a central role in the affordability assessment; 3) HSI must drive the system risk assessment; 4) HSI must maximize the quality of acquired products; 5) HSI must attend to requirements for concurrent engineering; 6) the HSI process must address the emphasis on use of commercial products and standards; 7) the HSI process must include requirements for prototyping, simulation and modeling; and 8) HSI must include requirements for specifying system operational performance objectives.
In design and development of ships and ship systems, additional requirements to be imposed on HSI include: 9) HSI must provide methods and data to enable manning reduction and to ensure adequate safety and workload in a reduced manning environment; 10) HSI must address the man-machine interface design requirements specific to a ship acquisition; and 11) HSI must provide methods and data to identify training requirements and curricula changes associated with a reduced manning environment.
The HSI process is directed primarily at the requirements levied in DoD Instruction 5000.2 sections on HSI, HFE, and safety and health. The additional requirements of the DoD 5000 series documents are also addressed by HSI processes as described below.
1) The primary objective of HSI, is to influence design. The way in which this is accomplished in the HSI process is through several initiatives:
2) The issue of affordability is addressed in DoD 5000.2R. The issue takes center stage in the HSI process due to the importance of manpower, personnel and training as drivers of life cycle costs, and due to the importance of reducing human error, the leading cause of accidents and system failures. The HSI inputs to the Affordability Assessment include the results of assessments of the implications of HSI for each candidate Acquisition Strategy and Alternative Design Concept. This analysis involves determination of life cycle resource requirements for: operational and maintenance manpower; training; personnel non-availability due to accident; expected human error rates; expected time to repair; requirements for supportability; and requirements resulting from expected system downtime. The Affordability Assessment will also determine if the proposed acquisition strategy is in line with Defense Planning Guidance and long-range modernization and investment plans. The Assessment will define the adjustments required of the proposed acquisition strategy due to HSI affordability factors; and will recommend changes to the acquisition strategy, or alternative acquisition strategies to resolve problems due to HSI affordability factors. The Affordability Assessment will assess alternative design concepts on HSI affordability factors, will identify alternative design concepts having problems with HSI affordability factors; and will recommend changes to alternative design concepts to improve the performance of HSI affordability factors.
3) In the realm of Risk Management the HSI process is focused on efforts to identify, prioritize, and reduce cost risks, schedule risks, design risks, and technology risks. The activities in this realm address reduction of risk, and the conduct of tradeoffs.
HSI Risk Assessment involves identification of critical human system factors in design alternatives that will have a significant impact on readiness, life cycle costs, schedule, or performance. These include tasks, task sequences, task complexity estimates; environments and environmental controls; equipment design features; maintenance requirements; information requirements; user-computer interface features; manning requirements; workloads; personnel skill levels; training requirements; and hazards.
HSI tradeoff decisions are required at each milestone. Tradeoffs include: role of man vs automation; approaches to reduced manning including improved design, task simplification, decision-aiding, automation, or cross-training; design, manning, or training approaches to reduce high drivers; alternative man-machine interface design concepts; hazard elimination, guarding, warning, or training; training vs job aiding; required skill levels of personnel; school house training vs organic training; and training media-fidelity/cost tradeoffs.
4) Concerning the need for maximizing the quality of acquired products, application of the HSI process links the notion of affordability with that of product quality from a human performance perspective. The underlying concerns in product quality include efforts to ensure usability, reliability, maintainability, supportability, and safety of products.
5) Concerning concurrent engineering, DoD 5000.1 requires that program plans provide for a systems engineering approach to the simultaneous design of the product and its associated manufacturing, test, and support processes. This concurrent engineering approach is viewed as essential to achieving a careful balance among system design requirements (e.g. operational performance, producibility, reliability, maintainability, logistics, human factors engineering, safety, survivability, interoperability, and standardization). HSI focuses on concurrent engineering through: its integration of human factors engineering, system safety and health, and manpower, personnel and training; its emphasis on supportability considerations in system design; and its reliance on test and evaluation throughout all phases of the HSI process.
6) DoD 5000.1 requires that maximum practical use be made of commercial and other nondevelopmental items, non-Government standards, and commercial item descriptions. The HSI process emphasizes the comprehensive evaluation of the human performance and safety impacts of commercial products and standards through test and evaluation. The HSI process also provides guidance on the application of HSI methods, techniques and data to the acquisition of nondevelopment items (NDI).
7) The role of prototyping, simulation and modeling in system acquisition is seen in DoDI 5000.2 mainly as a technique for assessing and reducing risks associated with integrating available and emerging technologies into a system design approach (Part 5 Section D). In the HSI process, prototyping and simulation serve to ensure that human concerns are addressed early in system acquisition, and also as a technique for reducing developmental costs, thereby enhancing affordability.
8) As stated in DoD 5000.1, performance objectives must satisfy operational needs and be verifiable through testing, and they must include critical supportability factors such as reliability, availability, and maintainability. The major contributions of the HSI process to the achievement of system operational performance objectives include the following:
a) identification of design deficiencies and lessons learned in existing systems which adversely impact personnel performance and safety;
b) development of design, manning and training options to resolve personnel performance, safety and readiness problems identified in existing systems;
c) determination of the optimum role of the human vs. automation in system operation and maintenance;
d) development of system, subsystem and component design concepts and criteria;
e) integration of personnel selection criteria, personnel skill requirements and human performance standards in the development of personnel performance and readiness criteria;
f) application of standardized, requirements-driven, front-end analysis techniques which address personnel quantity and quality demands as well as human-machine interface design requirements;
g) reductions of required manning, workloads, training, and skills and task simplification through HSI application;
h) reductions of human error potential and enhancement in error detection and recovery in emerging systems;
i) reductions in accident rates and health hazards, and enhancement of human performance and safety in adverse environments;
j) reductions in the risks associated with personnel capability, availability, performance, productivity, and safety;
k) attention to development and implementation of HSI technology;
l) significant cost avoidance/reduction due to reduced error rates, reduced accident rates, reduced system redesign requirements, enhanced system availability, reduced training time and effort, reduced training pipelines, improved system supportability, and increased system survivability.
9) The HSI process will enable manning reduction and will ensure adequate safety and workload in a reduced manning environment. The major approach to reducing manning is to reallocate functions to automated performance which were previously conducted manually, thereby reducing the workload on human operators, and reducing the number of personnel required. In this strategy, the emphasis is on a determination of the roles of the human in the system. The HSI approach at role of human determination, conducted for the purpose of reducing system manning with respect to the existing system, is directed at describing, through reverse engineering, the allocation of function strategy evident in an existing system. Alternate allocations are then characterized based on automating manual functions, and the impact of these allocation alternatives on human workload is then measured through task network simulation.
10) The HSI process addresses the human-machine interface design requirements specific to a ship acquisition. In accomplishing this, the HSI specialist operates at both the interface level and the system level. At the interface level HSI is concerned with the design of man-machine interfaces at the point of interface. At the system level, human factors is concerned with several specific aspects of the system which are provided by the sum total of the interfaces that make up the system. These aspects include:
a) system design for operability (reduction of human error potential in operations, provision of decision aids, design to facilitate training, etc.);
b) design for maintainability ( reduction of human error potential in maintenance, reduced time to repair, increased operational time, etc.);
c) design for fightability (design to enhance human performance as it impacts weapon system performance);
d) design for survivability and safety (design to reduce accidents, design of warning devices and countermeasures, design of protective clothing and equipment);
e) design for supportability ( design of documentation, design of supply interfaces, etc.);
f) design for habitability ( environmental design, equipment arrangements, compartmentalization, etc.);
g) design for usability (design for ease of use, reduced workload, etc.);
h) design to reduce costs ( human engineering design for reduced manning and training requirements).
The objective of HSI is to produce a design concept for the system man-machine interface which reduces the potential for human error and accident and which ensures that the human in the system performs as required. HSI views the human as an integral component of the system to be interfaced with the hardware, software, informational and environmental elements of the system. The body of knowledge of HSI encompasses knowledge of human capabilities and limitations, and principles and data addressing the application of this knowledge.
The HSI process supports design activity by providing methods and data for: maximizing the quality of acquired products, participating in concurrent engineering, application of commercial standards, using prototyping and simulation to support the development and assessment of man-machine interface design concepts, and ensuring that performance objectives satisfy operational needs.
11) The HSI process also identifies training requirements and curricula changes associated with a reduced manning environment. In determining reduced manning ship training needs based on the systems approach to training demands that specific training requirements identified for existing manning level ships be used to generate the training needs when ship manning is reduced. The HSI process Identifies how job-tasks and how job skills and knowledge will change in the reduced manning configuration. For identified job tasks to be performed in the reduced manning configuration, task skills and knowledge were identified. These skills and knowledge used the skills and knowledge in existing ships as the point of reference. The analysis identified to what extent the skills and knowledge will change due to the reduction in manning. The analysis also identified how training methods and media will change in the reduced manning configuration. The major change expected in training methods and media will include total ship crew resources management (CRM). CRM is designed to train ship crews in cognitive and interpersonal skills, and demonstrates how to utilize these skills in conjunction with technical job skills to result in safe and more efficient ship operations. The strategy of CRM is to focus on developing a team centered approach to problem identification, Finally, the HSI process defines requirements for evaluating existing training curricula and identifying changes required to support the reduced-manning ship.
The development of the HSI processes began with identification of generic system acquisition requirements and activities, reviewed from DoD 5000.1 and 5000.2. HSI processes were identified to include process steps, activities and guidelines at each phase of system acquisition.
1.1.1.3 SECNAV 5000.2C references
[still only a draft document]
1.1.1.4 MIL STD 1472 and ASTM 1166
The MIL STD 1472 document can be opened in Adobe Acrobat format here.
1.1.2 HSI in systems acquisition
1.1.3 HSI domains