Getting to Know the User of ARTHUR Weapon Locating System

101 Pages·2010·8.51 MB·English

Getting to Know the User of ARTHUR Weapon Locating System
AM aSstteerp o tf oScwieanrcde sT hUessies -[Oinr tiheen Mteadst ePr rDoedgruecet P Droegvraemlompem Inednutstrial Design Engineering]
FREDRIK ANDERSSON
TAINA FLINK
Division of Design & Human Factors
Department of Product and Production Development
CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
Göteborg, Sweden, 2010

Getting to Know the User of ARTHUR Weapon Locating System
A Step towards Use-Oriented Product Development
FREDRIK ANDERSSON
TAINA FLINK
Getting to Know the User of ARTHUR Weapon Locating System
A Step towards Use-Oriented Product Development
FREDRIK ANDERSSON
TAINA FLINK
© FREDRIK ANDERSSON, TAINA FLINK, 2010
Published and distributed by
Department of Product and Production Development
Division of Design & Human Factors
Chalmers University of Technology
SE-412 96 Göteborg
Sweden
Telephone + 46 (0)31-772 1000
Cover: [The ARTHUR Weapon Locating System and the two personas developed,
see chapter 3.2 and 7.1 for further informtion. Pictures by Saab Group, Boston,
ImageryMajestic, Denson and Irusta]
[Chalmers Reproservice] Göteborg, Sweden 1999
IV
ABSTRACT
ARTHUR WLS is an ARTillery HUnting Radar Weapon Locating System, used
to locate firing artillery weapons so that they can be disarmed and to esti-
mate the impact points so that people on the ground can be warned. AR-
THUR is developed by Saab Electronic Defence Systems. This thesis studies
the users of ARTHUR and is an example of how a company can study their
users’ needs and behaviors in order to take human factors into account. It
demonstrates how this knowledge can be conveyed into the product devel-
opment organization, so that it comes to use. This will be done by creating
a booklet of information on the user and includes pointers and methods of
how to take the user and usage in account in the design process.
In the field of human factors, knowing your user is the key to success. When
product development turns use-oriented, large competitive advantages will
be gained. Theory suggests that human factors integration can be achieved
in three ways; education, enforcement and end-user involvement. The basis
for understanding user’s needs is not the study of needs as such, but the
study of activities and actions since needs cannot be detected directly. In
this thesis, this is further complicated by the military culture and the fact
that the users themselves are hard to reach.
The extensive data collection was carried out through interviews within the
company and a telephone interview with an operator, surveys sent out to
ARTHUR operators in four countries, observing deployment of the system as
well as reading articles from the Danish artillery’s mission in Afghanistan.
The data was analyzed by, among other things, finding causes and conse-
quences for the problems, issues and disturbances found. By analyzing the
engineers as intended users of the booklet as well as their existing design
process, requirements for the booklet were found. One of these require-
ments was to make the user present in the mind of the designer during the
design process, and for this scenarios and personas were created out of the
collected data.
Conclusively, the research carried out adds substantially to the knowledge of
ARTHUR users and ARTHUR user behavior at Saab. The fact that the authors
have not met the users in person probably contributes to the extent of the
result but not the reliability of the result itself. The most important recom-
mendation to succeed in human factors integration and in developing more
usable products is to involve the end-user to a greater extent.
V
VI
PREFACE
This is the master’s thesis of Fredrik Andersson and Taina Flink and has been com-
pleted as a part of the master in Industrial Design Engineering. It has been carried
out at the division of Design and Human Factors at the department of Product and
Production Development at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Swe-
den. The initiator of the project is Saab Electronic Defence Systems in Gothenburg
where the project has been conducted. The master thesis has been running from
February 2010 to August 2010 and constitutes 30 ETCS.
We would like to thank our examiner, Anna-Lisa Osvalder, for her warm support,
and our tutor at Chalmers, Lars-Ola Bligård, for his deep involvement and for shar-
ing his experience of both theory and practice of human factors.
We would also like to thank the many employees of Saab Electronic Defence Sys-
tems who have taken the time to be interviewed and letting us observe them in
their work. A special thanks also to Torgny Hansson, the initiator of the project, for
giving us the opportunity to undertake this project and for his valuable insights as
well as our tutor at Saab, Jan Rydén, for his support, willingness to help and keen
interest in our work. Last but not least, we would like to thank Gustav Klock and
Robert Nilsson who are advocates of human factors at Saab, and have been mentor-
ing us throughout the project. Thank you for your feedback and encouragement.
VII
VIII
ABBREVIATIONS
ARTHUR Artillery Hunting Radar
DEFSTAN Defence Standard by the British Ministry of Defence
EDS Electronic Defence Systems
FOB Forward operating base
HF Human Factors
HFE Human Factors Engineering
HFI Human Factors Integration
INS Inertial Navigation System
MOTS Military off the shelf
RCU Remote Control Unit
TRU Transceiver Unit
WLS Weapons Loctaing System
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Introduction 2
1.1 Background 2
1.2 Purpose 3
1.3 Goal 4
1.4 Delimitations 4
1.5 Research Questions 4
12.6 TheoWroyr k Structure 74
2.1 Human Factors 7
23.2 C onteTxhet User 1162
3.1 Military Culture 16
3.2 The Product 17
34.3 D ata TChoe lCloemcptiaonyn 2119
4.1 Process description 21
4.2 Interviews 22
4.3 Surveys 24
4.4 Participation 29
4.5 Documentation Analysis 30
4.6 User Observation 31
4.7 Graphic System View 34
4.8 Online Research 36
45.9 A nalySsumism ary 3398
5.1 KJ-analysis 39
5.2 Priority Matrix 40
5.3 Problem and Cause Matrix 41
5.4 Operator Needs Analysis 43
5.5 Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA) 43
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