Abstract

Satellite navigation systems provide continuous, timely, and accurate signals of location, speed, and time to users all over the world. Although the running of these systems has become highly automated, the human operator is still vital for its continued operation, especially when certain equipment failures occur. In this paper, we examined 180 incidents of one particular type of equipment failure and the whole recovery process as recorded in the log files from a ground control center of the Beidou satellite navigation system. We extracted the information, including the technical description of the failure, the time when the fault occurred, the full recovery time, and the demographic information of the team members on the shift responsible for responding to the failure. We then transformed these information into the cognitive complexity of the task, time of day, shift handover period, and team skill composition. Multiple regression analysis showed that task complexity and shift handover were key predictors of recovery time. Time of day also influenced the recovery time, during midnight to 4 a.m., operators made longer responses. We also found that the fault handling processes could be improved if the team’s most adept member is more skillful at that role than in other teams. We discussed the theoretical and practical implication of this study.

Highlights

  • Satellite navigation systems play an important role in modern society

  • We conducted a series of hierarchical regression analyses to predict all three times (T1, T2, and T3) using task complexity, time of day, shift handover period, and team skill level measures

  • This study attempts to provide an initial understanding of how task, environmental, and team characteristics jointly influence the fault handling process of the Beidou satellite navigation system

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Summary

Introduction

Satellite navigation systems play an important role in modern society. The wellestablished US-owned Global Positioning System (GPS) provided $ 68.7 billion economic benefits in 2013, making up 0.4% of U.S GDP (Leveson, 2015). Satellite navigation systems consist of 1000s of instruments, and each instrument has different functions. If a certain instrumental failure occurs, the system may not be able to provide its service in a normal manner. Quick recovery is key for system effectiveness. It can result in serious disturbance to its users all over the globe

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