Speaker

Scott Jackson, INCOSE Fellow

Location & Time

National University (near LAX Airport)
5245 Pacific Concourse Drive, Ste 100
Room 315
Time: 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Abstract

This tutorial provides a framework for the creation of systems, both human and product systems, that avoid major accidents and survive and recover from disruptions. This tutorial will explain the process for creating a system that will avoid accidents and will be most likely to survive and recover from a disruption. In resilience the emphasis is on anticipation of the accident and taking steps to prevent it.

This tutorial is also comprehensive with respect to the kinds of systems of interest. It discusses, for example, human systems such as hospitals and emergency infrastructures. It also discusses large and complex hardware and software systems, such as space systems and commercial aircraft.

Survival and recovery from disruptions are central to the study of system resilience. In order to define a system capable of avoiding an accident or surviving and recovering from a disruption, it is necessary to define the disruptions that may occur. These disruptions fall into three major categories: degradation of input; degradation of function, capability, or capacity; and unexpected changes in environment load. The most robust systems will be resilient to all three types of disruption.

The creation of resilient systems is dependent on creating resilient attributes of the system, of which adaptability is one of the most important. The creation of adaptability relies on advanced systems approaches utilizing the principles and heuristics of adaptability.

This tutorial also discusses many of the cultural barriers to avoiding accidents and recovering from them. It presents a survey of promising methods to deal with these barriers.

Another subject of interest is whether the propensity to accidents can be inferred from statistical analysis of defects and near misses. This tutorial summarizes some promising research on the subject that suggests that it is possible to do this.

Biography

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Scott Jackson, M.A., M.S., is an Adjunct Associate Professor in Systems Engineering Theory and Practice in the University of Southern California (USC) graduate program in Systems Architecture and Engineering. He is the author of Systems Engineering for Commercial Aircraft, Ashgate Publishing Limited, 1997. He is an INCOSE Fellow. At USC he is the principal investigator in system resilience, for which he represented the University at the Resilience Engineering Symposium in 2006. Through Scott, the University is a node of the Resilience Engineering Network. Mr. Jackson will also be presenting this same tutorial at the INCOSE International Symposium on Monday, June 16. The International Symposium will be held in Utrecht, the Netherlands.