Systems of Systems

Chapter 4

The Human Factor within the Context of Systems of Systems ¹

 

4.1. Introduction

Within a book about systems of systems, the chapter dedicated to the human factor builds on the disciplines of social sciences and applies them to the context of systems of systems. As such, this chapter is not an introduction to these various disciplines. However, readers wishing to learn more about those disciplines will find a selection of related resources within this chapter’s bibliography. Moreover, this chapter does not pretend to be exhaustive. Social sciences feature many varied and highly rich disciplines, which can sometimes present a different point of view on a single object. In such a context, this chapter only broaches a certain number of concepts which are relevant to the notion of system of systems.

Within systems engineering, and a fortiori within systems of systems engineering, the aspects relative to the human factors, in their entirety, have to this day mainly pertained to the ergonomics of the operating consoles, and to the human-system interfaces. Many documents exist on the subject, which readers may consult, including books by Chapanis [CHA 96], Norman [NOR 90], and Kolski [KOL 97], [MAH 09], and [LEP 03].

When the aspects relative to processes, activities, and organizational dimensions are treated in the field of information systems, they are studied within a framework built on reductive organization models, which do not take recent works in social sciences and management ...