Air Traffic Management Concept Baseline Definition - The Boeing ...

4.2.1 Baseline Data Of Human Roles
In order to have a reasonable level of confidence in the successful evolution towards a
system that achieves the capacity goals stated in Section 2, there is a need for a
comprehensive, integrated description of human behavior (both physical and cognitive) in
the system. The description would serve as a baseline against which to compare proposed
changes to the system. Such a baseline provides by far the most cost effective way of
estimating potential impact of proposed change before the costly process of prototype
development and testing is undertaken. The valuable framework that such a database can
provide should not be underestimated.
An excellent review of human factors research relevant to various aspects of air traffic
control has recently been published by the National Research council’s Panel on Human
Factors in Air Traffic Control (Wickens, 1997). Many of the references in this work
provide pieces of the puzzle of human behavior in the ATM system. The work of the
Panel is probably the first comprehensive step in providing a knowledge base for human
behavior in the ATM system. The next part of that team’s work should add greatly to a
knowledge base.
The availability of both the database and knowledge base should provide a powerful tool
for focusing the development and assessment of decision support tools.
4.2.2 Involvement Of Human Factors From Concept Development Through Final
Design
The role of human factors in system development must not be confined to that of
modifying the results of earlier design decisions to ensure user acceptability. Failure to
consider human performance capabilities and limitations from the very beginning of
concept definition can lead to inappropriate design and serious compromises in system
productivity and even safety. Human factors specialists must be full members of
interdisciplinary development and design teams from the start of the development cycle, so
that both the strengths and weaknesses of the human subsystem can be adequately
accommodated in the final design.
The design team should include the design engineers and end user personnel as well as the
human factors specialists; the latter often play a mediating role between designer and user.
The emphasis here on inclusion of end user personnel is important. However, there is a
need to ensure that the end users are well versed in the principles and skills used by the
other team disciplines. These end users tend to become untypical because of their
involvement in the development process, thus there is a need for regular reviews involving
more typical end users.
The multi-disciplinary design teams should work closely through the entire spectrum of
development tasks from concept development and function analysis/allocation through
preliminary design and prototype development and system evaluation with special
emphasis on human performance testing. Section 4.2.3 discusses the involvement of the
team beyond this point, but it cannot be too strongly emphasized that human factors
specialists should be full members of such teams from the beginning of their existence.
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