"Modeling the Work of Humans and Automation in Complex
Operations" #readingToday  

"Humans have always been the vital components of complex operations, notably including aviation. They remain so even as sophisticated automation systems are introduced, changing – but not eliminating – the role of the human relative to the collective work required to achieve mission performance. Automation designers and certification agencies are interested in methods to predict and model how complex operations can be performed by teams of humans and automated agents. This paper proposes that the combined activities of both human and automation required by a proposed design can best be captured by focusing on modeling the work inherent to a complex operation. As a fundamental first step, the overall concept of operations spanning all the work activities can be examined for its feasibility in nominal and off-nominal conditions. These activities can then also be examined to see whether the demands they place upon the human agents in the system are feasible and facilitate the human's ability to contribute, rather than assuming unreasonable situations such as excessive workload, boredom, incoherent task descriptions, excessive monitoring requirements, etc. Further, trade-offs in distributing these activities across agents (both human and automated) can be evaluated in terms of task-interleaving created by the distribution of activity and in terms of the 'interaction overhead' associated with communication and coordination between agents required for a given distribution. A description of a modeling and simulation framework capable of modeling work is provided along with an analysis framework to evaluate proposed complex operations."