Work process analysis: a necessary step in the development of decision support systems. An aviation safety case study

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the importance of work process modeling and supporting data analysis in system development. To illustrate the process of modeling for system development, we describe how traditional task analysis was used in our effort to understand the work processes associated with the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) airworthiness and operations surveillance inspection activities. Further, the integration of risk assessment techniques resulted in a validated task analysis providing a review of the as-is state of surveillance activities. It is also shown how the as-is surveillance work processes that resulted from these studies were used as the foundation for a re-engineered ( re-eng) surveillance work process model. We conclude by describing a follow-on activity, the development of a safety critical work process model, which reflects an integration of the as-is and re-engineered work process descriptions, the human factors literature, inspection data analysis, federal aviation regulations and identified areas of safety criticality.