Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

This research program aims to develop approaches, algorithms and mathematical relationships needed to create models of operations and management policy that integrate human factors (HF) considerations into understanding the performance and outcome patterns of operations system design and management decisions. While humans are part of every engineered system, we are routinely omitted from engineering design processes. This contributes to errors, accidents, injuries and performance losses at work that compromise the entire system's performance. Engineers need design tools that can identify problems in the design stage. This research program will develop simulation methods for both manufacturing and healthcare system contexts that can quantify the impacts of design choices on (human) system operators' workload, individual capacity variation, and eventual system performance. This research program will advance our ability to include human aspects in system simulation tools on three fronts: Goal 1: Developing novel HF related simulation approaches. HQP will address a specific novel HF aspect in the model's capability. HF in this case could include perceptual, cognitive, physical (e.g., motor), or psychosocial aspects of the workplace. In this work impacts on fatigue and error making will be a particular focus as this dimension is related both to human safety, injury risks (with a particular eye on human diversity in vulnerability), and system performance. Goal 2: Modelling & Testing Specific System Design Features. Critical strategic choices in manufacturing and healthcare systems include core task design, logistics flows, distribution of tasks, physical system layouts, and the use of new technologies. Each of these elements can have a large impact on the human in the system, affecting their workload, fatigue, and performance that determine the quality and productivity of the whole system. We will use the techniques developed under Goal 1 to understand these impacts. Goal 3: Understanding Knowledge Users' and System Operators' Perspectives. All simulation projects in this program will benefit from engagement with those who would use these tools. This strategy helps `ground' projects in realistic scenarios and identifies specific concerns of interest to the partners (feeding Goals 1 & 2). This allows the new methods to be tailored to suit the needs of eventual users while also addressing current design challenges faced by system designers and managers. This will improve the usability and ease of adoption of these novel simulation approaches. This research program will create the next generation of simulation approaches that will allow system designers to understand the human dimensions - including human wellbeing and performance - in the systems they design.