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Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Systems Engineering Wholeness... Accounting for All the System Functions

A few Systems Engineers I know have a tough time owning all of their system's functionality, regardless of where those functions have been allocated.  They readily take ownership of baselining the functionality allocated to their system's hardware and software, but for some reason have not considered baselining their system's functionality allocated to humans to perform.  Since I know of no fully automated (i.e. all functionality allocated to hardware and software) C4I systems, the results are often predictable.  

Systems Engineers do understand that humans perform C4I systems functions, because they get feedback from the Fleet that the Sailors have a very difficult time operating or maintaining their system.  Yet they make no objective attempt to consistently baseline human performance during system testing in the labs, when their system is being operated and maintained by humans... Subject Matter Experts (SMEs).  Their system tests well in the lab when operated and maintained by SMEs, and then tests well when installed aboard ship where it is again operated and maintained by SMEs (who are "assisting" the Sailors as they learn how to operate and maintain their new system).  But then the SMEs depart.  The Sailors attempt to perform their system functions allocated to them, and their performance is not up to par with that of the SMEs.  Of course it isn't.  How could a System Engineer expect otherwise?  The majority of Sailors aren't SMEs.  So they struggle to get the darn thing to work, and then out of frustration file a CASREP for Tech Assist.  Out come the SMEs... in a few minutes, with no parts needed, the system works just fine, once you get it all configured correctly.  The SMEs depart.  Soon thereafter... CASREP for Tech Assist.  The vast majority of C4I systems are restored to full functionality without drawing a single part from supply.

Are Sailors' performance of systems functions ever baselined?  Sure... by the Fleet.  They have PQS, and watchstander qualifications... these are human performance baselines.  But is this where system Operability and Maintainability should be baselined for the first time?  How does the Systems Engineer understand the performance of all system functionality, including that allocated to Sailors to perform, when that human performance baseline isn't established until the system leaves the testing labs?  How does the Systems Engineer come to learn that the systems functions allocated to humans to perform should instead be reallocated to hardware or software?  The Systems Engineers do reallocate system functionality from software to the Sailors to perform... every time a system trouble report determines a software function that doesn't work has a procedural work-around, and they decide to "fix" that problem by having the Sailors perform that work-around, they've in essence reallocated system functionality to the Sailor that had previously been allocated to software to perform.  Can the Sailors perform all those systems functions?  That's not the question, because ships aren't simply the collocation of individual systems in space and time.  Ships are a System of Systems.  The question is can the Sailors perform all the System of Systems functions they've been allocated to perform, by individual Systems Engineers who have made that decision for their individual system?  

Let's consider a single use case... Multi TADIL J (MTJ), a System of Systems (SoS).  The Fleet has expressed more than mild exasperation with MTJ, but not with the SoS hardware or software.  It's too darn difficult to operate and maintain, end to end.  Is there a Systems Engineer for MTJ?  No.  So who has determined that all the MTJ SoS functionality allocated to Sailors to perform is not more than should be expected for Sailors to perform?  Who has determined the Operability baseline of MTJ?  What is the probability that all the Sailors performing their SoS functions can perform them without error?  These are not training questions.  These are not technical documentation questions.  Training and technical documentation have only one purpose... to increase the probability that Sailors will perform their system functions without error.  But how much training and documentation is needed to increase that probability if a human performance baseline isn't established until the SoS is in the hands of the Fleet?  Why aren't Systems Engineers taking ownership of all the system functions, regardless of where they've been allocated?  Am I frustrated?  I used to be... until an organization took ownership of C4I System of Systems Wholeness... SPAWAR's PEO C4I PMW760, the Ship Integration program office.

PMW760 has examined System of Systems (SoS) functionality, and endeavored to reallocate some of those very difficult and time consuming human functions to software.  They are endeavoring to automate the determination of SoS configuration, something Sailors must do but have a very difficult time doing.  If most of the C4I CASREPs for Tech Assist are cleared by SMEs reestablishing the tested and approved configuration, then Sailors armed with the automation tools to readily determine the SoS configuration, and how it compares to the tested and approved configuration, will at least know their SoS configuration is no longer within baseline, and the automation will point out where within the SoS the misconfiguration issue resides.  This in my humble opinion is a step in the right direction, because as the force becomes more geographically separated under Distributed Lethality, the Sailors will need to rely more and more upon themselves vice the SMEs to restore their SoS functionality.  What's all the more remarkable is PMW760 is doing this without a SoS budget from OPNAV to perform Platform Integration.                           

1 comment:

Joseph Bulger III said...

Update... a preliminary version of the automation was demonstrated at SPAWAR on a production CANES network, and the results were very promising. This demonstration finished the developer's initial tasking under contract, and the demo results warranted a small follow-on task with funding to electronically deliver the automation's output data in a format that would be automatically ingested and processed by another powerful but heretofore separate automation tool that models and visually displays mission architectures (e.g. Undersea Warfare, BMD). This latter automation had previously been fed the data it needed manually, so that not only isn't it time relevant, but the configuration information fed into it was the "once upon a time" state of the ship's networks. As mentioned in the article above, these System of Systems configurations are dynamic, hence the value of the persistent configuration assessment tool. This is very promising from the perspective of understanding the metrics of Platform C4I Baselines (e.g. wholeness, affinity) not only as designed, but as installed, as operated, and as sustained over time, across ship classes, in different operating areas, etc.