کمپس: یک روش برای تخصیص تابع تکمیلی در سیستم های کار اتوماتیک

A method supporting complementary function allocation in automated work systems called KOMPASS will be presented. KOMPASS supports interdisciplinary design teams in deciding about function allocation in automated systems, taking into account the need for an integral consideration of people-related, technological and organizational factors in the design of work systems in order to satisfy the demands for effectiveness and safety of the overall work system as well as for motivating jobs for the human operators. A set of empirically tested criteria for the evaluation of the complementarity of system design forms the basis of guidelines for the analysis of work systems, individual tasks and human–machine systems as well as for a heuristic for system design. The method is described, including a practical example of an automation project to which it was applied.

New production concepts geared towards dealing with highly complex products and production processes as well as fast changes in production demands call for an integral approach to technical, job and organizational design (e.g. Karwowski et al., 1994; Ulich, 1998). A crucial decision in the design of a production system concerns its degree of automation, which includes the allocation of functions between human operator and technical system. This decision has important consequences for the speci- "cation of technical requirements, for the design of the jobs of future operators of the system, and for the e$ciency, quality and safety of the production process. The allocation of functions will signi"cantly a!ect system #exibility, not only because machines are still*despite the development of #exible manufacturing technologies*in- #exible by comparison, but also because functions can be allocated in a way that renders it very di$cult or even impossible for the human operator to use his or her #exibility. Two concerns in this context are (1) the opportunities for the development and maintenance of practical production skills provided by a given allocation of functions and (2) the shift generally required in more automated systems from practical to theoretical systems knowledge (e.g. Duncan, 1981; Sonntag, 1990; BoK hle & Rose, 1992). How both of these concerns are handled in terms of technical and job design as well as quali"cation of the operator will strongly in#uence the degree to which human potential can be employed.In order to explicitly address the interactions between technological, organizational and people-related factors in the design process, system designers need methods which permit on the one hand an analysis of tasks to be performed both in existing and planned work systems and on the other hand support them in the design process taking into consideration those interactions. Such methods should neither focus on requirements and consequences for the human operator alone, nor should they provide solely an abstract list of functional or technical requirements. Instead, task analysis and system design methods should enable the design team to evaluate the interplay of task de"nitions at the work system level, the individual job holder level and the human}machine system level, and to de"ne and evaluate functions as components of these tasks in order to decide on their allocation in a sociotechnical system. With KOMPASS, a method for task analysis and system design is provided which takes into account the need for an integrated consideration of technological, organizational and people-related factors. In accordance with normative approaches to job and organizational design stemming from humanistic psychology, action theory and sociotechnical systems theory (e.g. Hackman & Oldham, 1976; Susman, 1976; Hacker, 1986; Oesterreich & Volpert, 1986; Pasmore, 1988; Ulich, 1998), KOMPASS is based on criteria derived from requirements for motivating and competence furthering tasks as well as for high levels of individual and collective self-regulation. Next, the theoretical background of KOMPASS and the proposed design criteria will be discussed. Then, the design method will be presented and illustrated by means of a case in which KOMPASS was applied.

KOMPASS attempts to improve the quality of design decisions in terms of the e$ciency and safety of the resulting system by providing empirically validated criteria for integral system analysis and design as well as a heuristic for the design process. The criteria are not to be understood as a &&quick "x'' leading to one straight-forward design solution, but as part of a heuristic, which enables the design team*as early as possible in the design process*to re#ect and if necessary correct their decisions about distributing functions between human operators and technical systems as well as between humans based on a more integral perspective. Results obtained with KOMPASS so far show that the method is suitable for supporting an interdisciplinary design team in an integrated consideration of the interplay of people, technology and organization. It allows concrete requirements for system design to be derived that further the complementary interaction between people and technology. In particular it could be showed that main strengths of the KOMPASS method concern the well-de"ned analysis guidelines (phase 1) and the support for the discussion and formulation of the design approach (phase 2). Neverthless, the design projects carried out so far brought to light some weaknesses of the method which will have to be worked on in future applications (see WaK#er, Windischer, Grote & Ryser, 1998). Particular attention will have to be given to the support of the design team in acting within the newly realized complexity. Especially the shift from a technology oriented view, which is very familiar to the participants, towards a thinking in KOMPASS categories turned out to be di$cult for the team members. The derivation of design requirements according to the principle of complementary system design, the development of design requirements and the detailing of these requirements, therefore, need more support. Moreover, for a successful application of KOMPASS, the support from &&KOMPASS experts'' turned out to be quite important. Particularly at the beginning of the project, KOMPASS does not provide su$cient help in de"ning the project goals as well as the composition of the design team. Thus, in order to render the method more independent from experts, procedures for the initial phase of a design project must be provided. Currently, along with trying to reduce these weaknesses of KOMPASS, "rst experiences are being gathered with the application of the method to domains outside discrete manufacturing systems, especially planning and scheduling systems as well as continuous production.