Human Factors Engineering: An Enabler for Military Transformation Through Effective Integration of Technology and Personnel

摘要

Transformation of the United States military requires new ways of defining both design and mission processes to improve warfighting performance and reduce system costs. New technologies engendered through the discipline of human-factors engineering enable warfighters to make more effective decisions in a timelier manner with fewer personnel. While the tradeoffs between new technologies and numbers of operators needed are complex, strong anecdotal evidence suggests that these manpower savings can be significant and have the potential to accelerate military transformation. The human factors engineering community has documented and quantified the enhanced mission effectiveness of fewer warfighters operating enhanced combat systems. What is less well quantified due to a number of institutional factors - is the true life cycle cost of military operators. This paper discusses design factors that support reduced crew workload and factors that influence crew cost estimation and size. The conclusion is that although we have identified good candidate designs to support reduced crew workload, we cannot adequately trade off their cost with personnel costs until we can more accurately quantify personnel costs.