Concept Paper
Sustainable Design and Management of Industrial Systems—A
Human Factors Perspective
Denis Alves Coelho
Supply Chain and Operations Management Deptartment, School of Engineering, Jönköping University,
551 11 Jönköping, Sweden; denis.coelho@ju.se
Citation: Coelho, D.A. Sustainable
Design and Management of
Industrial Systems—A Human
Abstract: The aim of this concept article is to articulate multiple contributions from socio-technical
fields into an approach for sustaining human-centred lifecycle management of industrial systems.
Widespread digitalization and advanced robotics have fostered interest on innovative human-machine
integration and sophisticated organizational transformation that is conducive to meeting the challenges of sustainability. Complementing technology-driven and data-driven approaches to industrial
systems development, the human factors approach offers a systems perspective that is at once
human-centred while striving for overall system performance, by considering technological and
organizational perspectives alike. The paper presents a set of recent human factors developments,
selected based on their potential to advance sustainability in industrial systems, including an activitycentred design perspective of industrial systems, and a unified and entangled view on organizational
goals yielding a dynamic change approach to socio-technical systems management. Moreover, developments in organizational resilience are coupled with recent breakthrough empirical understanding
of conditions conducive to attaining resilience in operations. The cross-pollination of the human
factors developments is further pursued, resulting in a proposal of combined key organizational
vectors that can mutually leverage and sustain human-centred design and management of industrial
systems (production and logistics systems alike) for resilience. Systems thinking encompassing human, organizational and technological perspectives supports integration of insights across entangled
domains; this can leverage both system enhancements that promote the satisfaction of dynamic
situation-dependent goals, as well as the fulfilment of objectives derived from long-term values of
an organization.
Factors Perspective. Appl. Syst. Innov.
2022, 5, 95. https://doi.org/10.3390/
asi5050095
Keywords: change; entanglements; resilience engineering; activity-centred design; empowerment;
leadership
Academic Editor: Pedro Dinis Gaspar
Received: 30 August 2022
Accepted: 23 September 2022
Published: 28 September 2022
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4.0/).
1. Introduction
Change is pervasive; hence, it does not come as a surprise that preparing for it, despite
its potential unpredictability, has become an important concern, and one that is becoming as
pervasive as change itself. In a world where change is constant and has become increasingly
expected, even if the details of a surprise change event might come across as situationally
unexpected, the systemic approach [1] is supportive of a multi-pronged perspective on
the sociotechnical system’s lifecycle (system design, operations management, ongoing
development, incremental system redesign). The cornerstone of such an approach is that it
embeds open systems and multi-scale perspectives. Interestingly, multilevel theory and
research has been established as a basis on which to provide a “richer and more complete
perspective on innovation” [2].
The data-driven decision-making and modelling approach (e.g., [3]) has gained
widespread popularity in the latest decade, coupled with a new generation of AI (artificial intelligence), based on ML (machine learning), gathering a lot of enthusiasm and
promising enhanced problem solving that meets the challenges of the 21st century (with
sustainability and resilience at the top of the list). Arguably, this is a recent update to the
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2022, 5, 95. https://doi.org/10.3390/asi5050095
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/asi
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2022, 5, 95
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widely disseminated technology-driven approach to systems development. Coincidentally, developments in software and technology have not been commonly set against the
backdrop of developments in organizational and human factors disciplines, even if it is
widely recognized that management of complex systems benefits from consideration of
human-centred perspectives from the design stage.
This article reports on a conceptual study joining multiple approaches, inherently
linked by a common denominator of human-centred, which spans the individual through
the collective (community or humanity centred) to the sustainability dimensions, bringing
together various perspectives on human-centred design and management of production
and logistics systems. Concepts such as dynamic situated frontline or leadership activated
change management (e.g., revising and actualizing a plan and its implementation, in a
reprogramming activity, is a form of dynamic change management [4], biomimicry [5],
resilience engineering [6], activity centred-design of production systems [7], as well as
human-systems integration [8] are juxtaposed and then cross-pollinated. The aim of this
conceptual article is hence to articulate multiple contributions from human-centred and
socio-technical fields into an approach for sustaining human-centred lifecycle management
of complex socio-technical systems, which production and logistics systems as well as
industrial systems are an instantiation of.
A conceptual framework was constructed from interdisciplinary sources on recent
human factors developments. A selection of human factors literature was first done based on
perceived potential impact in advancing the sustainability of industrial systems. The results
extracted from the selected publications are presented in the body of the paper and crosspollinated as a representation of the key vectors extracted from the conceptual framework.
The research gap, this paper contributes to bridge across, is situated within the challenges of sustainability and resilience for industrial systems and organizations in general. It
consists in practical approaches that have been missing from literature on how to accelerate
leaping forward from a fragmented view of three seemingly disparate perspectives in
industrial systems: technological, human and managerial (organizational). Hence, an
understanding is needed on how to unify seemingly disparate recent developments on
human factors and organizational design and management with the power of data-driven
and technological advances, to leverage both system enhancements that promote the satisfaction of dynamic situation-dependent goals, as well as the fulfilment of objectives derived
from long-term values of an organization.
In the study at hand, an approach to unification of seemingly disparate perspectives
and recent developments in human factors has been essayed, resulting in the proposition
of values that may be infused pervasively into the systems’ design and management
as a means of orchestration across the diverse subsystems. This unified and pervasive
value proposition contributes towards fulfilment of the pressing societal challenges on
industrial systems (resilient and sustainable configuration and operation), as a scalable
and transferrable set of values, that can be applied at multiple scales of systems and
subsystems and compatibilized with disparate generations of data-driven decision-making
and modelling, as well as technological generations and managerial traditions. Hence, the
research question, the study reported in this article tackles, is:
How may industrial systems’ lifecycle management be sustainably enhanced with
integrated human factors and socio-technical contributions?
A paradigmatic change is increasingly being called for, and long overdue, in order
to leap forward in the ongoing race towards heightened sustainability and resilience of
industrial and societal systems, given the seemingly planetary desolation of climate change,
resource depletion, ecological degradation and pollution. The paradigm shift entailed in
the unified view of systems thinking represents a leap from the fragmented view of boxed
in perspectives and academic disciplines. Even if, increasingly interdisciplinary, research
that departs from the fragmented stance is inherently at odds with the unification and open
systems stance that seems to be beneficial in advancing towards tackling the seemingly
unsurpassable contemporary challenges using only the traditional approaches. Likewise,
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2022, 5, 95
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organizational design and management is faced with the same challenges as academia, as
these are essentially planetary and civilizational, and is thirsty for new effective philosophies and principles that can come to the rescue of industrial and organizational systems at
large. The current study proposes one step forward towards dissemination of the unified
philosophy to complex systems design and management, by focusing on specific values and
promoting the view of infusion of these values pervasively across the organization. This
is to be achieved in a multi-pronged approached, which includes the classical top-down
infusion by leadership, and includes the participatory bottom-up approach, as well as
the pervasive empowerment across the organization, promoting situated and proactive
solutions across all agents (human, technological and organizational).
In the following sections, this article presents the conceptual framework extracted
from selected human factors literature, starting with the activity-centred perspective on
development of industrial systems Sections 2 and 3 introduces a unified view connecting across traditionally siloed organizational structures, referencing a practical example
from industry. Section 4 introduces the concept of situated activated dynamic change
management and Section 5 presents a resilience engineering perspective for value-driven
organization design and operations management. The discussion (Section 6) articulated
the conceptual framework and integrated it into a proposition of key vectors to sustain resilience in industrial systems. The concluding section of the article also presents remaining
challenges to be tackled in future research.
2. An Activity Perspective on Production and Logistics Systems
The planning models that are commonly used to support managerial decision-making
in production and logistic systems have commonly neglected the specific characteristics of
human workers [9]. This begs the question—‘How can such a complex reality of production
and logistics systems design be centred around humans?’. If one is to position this question
at a different point in the timeline of the system lifecycle, this would include the blueprint
stage and the management of the operations, as well as the redevelopment stage of the
lifecycle of the system. Moreover, there is typically a big amount of different people with
distinct roles that are involved in any production and logistics system, as well as in any
socio-technical system. Hence, how can one effectively centre this multitude of human
diverse activity? One feasible way of integrating across the distinct roles is thinking in
terms of values.
Traditionally, human beings have been split within organizations between blue-collar
and white-collar categories of employment, in the HTO (Human Technology Organisation)
framework proposed by Karltun et al. [10] these equate to the Human subsystem, of
which workers are a part of, and the Organisation subsystem, which includes management
(additionally, the T in HTO stands for the Technological subsystem). Moreover, the variety
of activities carried out by the multitude of human actors is also great. If one considers this
wide variety of roles, that could prompt thinking about values, e.g., sustainability values,
as an aggregator and common denominator. Hence, armed with this key aggregator of
sustainability values one may then leap forward towards the next question, which is ‘how
can one integrate across people when embracing a set of sustainability values?’, which
can deliberately include health, wealth, and overall well-being as well as resilience. This
question might be answered simply with the word ‘activity’, and specifically in the form
of human activity as an operationalization of goals and values that enables a focus on
human-centeredness.
An example of part of an activity centred analysis of a logistics process taking place
in an outbound warehouse process is shown in Figure 1. The actions depicted are the
result of breaking down the activity, and then the broken-down actions are composed of
operations. If one is to consider the design stage of the system where this activity takes
place, one could call upon different methods (e.g., interviews, ethnographic shadowing,
focus groups, etc.) to elicit the values and the goals that guide each one of these brokendown actions and operations, and in that way inform the design. This would lead to
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2022, 5, 95
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2022, 5, 95
4 of 14
place, one could call upon different methods (e.g., interviews, ethnographic shadowing,
4 of 13
focus groups, etc.) to elicit the values and the goals that guide each one of these brokendown actions and operations, and in that way inform the design. This would lead to bringing
together
different
fields of
knowledge
and different
methods
and tools,
which
many
bringing
together
different
fields
of knowledge
and different
methods
andin
tools,
in which
of
them
are
commonly
used
within
the
human
factors
and
ergonomics
toolbox,
even
if
many of them are commonly used within the human factors and ergonomics toolbox,
shared
by
many
disciplines.
It
is
often
also
considered
that
socio-technical
systems
analyeven if shared by many disciplines. It is often also considered that socio-technical systems
sis
is a valid
perspective
to embrace
whenwhen
striving
for human
systems
integration.
The
analysis
is a valid
perspective
to embrace
striving
for human
systems
integration.
example
provided
(Figure
1)
illustrates
how
human
activity
may
be
structured
and
The example provided (Figure 1) illustrates how human activity may be structured unand
derstood
as aasstep
in guiding
thethe
activity
centred
design
of production
systems,
as well
as
understood
a step
in guiding
activity
centred
design
of production
systems,
as well
logistics
systems.
as logistics systems.
Figure
Figure 1.Warehouse
1. Warehouseoutbound
outbounddecomposition
decompositionof
ofactivity
activity(action
(actionand
andoperations)
operations)(source:
(source:author).
author).
Activity Centred
Centred Design
Design of
of Production
Production and
and Logistics
Logistics Systems
Systems
Activity
Activity centred
centred design
design of
of production
production is
is aamethod
method that
thatwas
wasdeveloped
developedby
byBligård
Bligårdand
and
Activity
Berlin [7]. It holds the purpose of centring design decisions to become coherent with the
Berlin [7]. It holds the purpose of centring design decisions to become coherent with the
overall purpose for the system, whether it is a production system as originally intended
overall purpose for the system, whether it is a production system as originally intended
or another kind of industrial system, such as a logistics system. This is what the authors
or another kind of industrial system, such as a logistics system. This is what the authors
have considered in terms of levels of analysis in a production system, and they are broken
have considered in terms of levels of analysis in a production system, and they are broken
down into five distinct levels. There is a design decision that is core to the development of
down into five distinct levels. There is a design decision that is core to the development
a blueprint of a production system or a logistics system. For example, at the macro system
of a blueprint of a production system or a logistics system. For example, at the macro
level, the design decision that is most salient is ‘what impact or what intended effects will
system level, the design decision that is most salient is ‘what impact or what intended
the work process achieve?’. This is then broken down into sublevels with a multitude of
effects will the work process achieve?’. This is then broken down into sublevels with a
branches, where each branch could include several pathways. How will the work process
multitude of branches, where each branch could include several pathways. How will the
perform its functions to achieve the desired effects defined by its inputs and outputs at the
work
process perform its functions to achieve the desired effects defined by its inputs and
middle system level or mesosystem level? And then when we zoom in to the micro level,
outputs
at the middle
system
level
or mesosystem
level?
And
then
when
we zoom in to
to the microsystem
level,
we can
further
break it down
into
three
levels
(human-machine
the
micro
level,
to
the
microsystem
level,
we
can
further
break
it
down
into
three levels
systems and subsystems and machine systems). Hence, this approach advocates
for a
(human-machine
systems
and
subsystems
and
machine
systems).
Hence,
this
approach
three-level decomposition executed twice (Table 1). We first have macro-, meso-,
and
advocates
for aand
three-level
decomposition
executed
twicehuman
(Table machine
1). We first
have macro-,
microsystem,
then within
the microsystem,
we have
systems,
human
meso-,
and
microsystem,
then within
the microsystem,
we have
human
sysmachine
subsystems
andand
machine
or technology
systems. The
lowest
level machine
of analysis
of
tems,
human
machine
subsystems
and
machine
or
technology
systems.
The
lowest
level
the microsystem is where the design decision can be informed by answering questions
of
analysis
of theconcrete
microsystem
is whereenablers,
the design
decision
can be tools
informed
by answering
such
as ‘which
technological
such
as materials,
or instructions,
are
questions
such
as
‘which
concrete
technological
enablers,
such
as
materials,
toolstasks?’,
or inneeded for humans and technological functions and agents to perform the work
structions,
humans
and agents
perform the
which can are
be needed
put intofor
action
as aand
waytechnological
of creating afunctions
first blueprint
for ato
production
or
work
tasks?’,
which
can be put
into action
asina mind
way ofthat
creating
a first
blueprint
for a prologistics
system.
However,
we need
to keep
once the
system
is designed,
the
duction
or logistics
system.
in mind that
oncepoint,
the system
is
assumptions
that went
into However,
the designwe
willneed
needtotokeep
be reviewed
at some
and that
process will gradually, and if carried out persistently, trigger opportunities for an ongoing
and incremental redevelopment of the system while it is operating. Here it should be noted
that the design stage and the operations management stage can be viewed as the opposing
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2022, 5, 95
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ends of a continuum in production and logistics systems design and management. The
continuous revision inherent in the continuous improvement stance is compatible with
the activity centred design process, which can also be applied to redesign of an existing
system in the operation stage of its lifecycle. Using this method as a tool for inquiry can
then inform and guide the creation of a design (or redesign) blueprint. This approach is
primarily aimed at the design stage, and it is one that can be easily blended with many
available off the shelf templates that can speed up the process of design based on combining
ready-made solutions for a faster process.
Table 1. Activity centred design decisions for production systems (adapted from Bligård & Berlin [7]).
System Analysis Level
Level in Production System
Design Decision
macrosystem
production site—effects
what impact, or what intended
effects, will the work process
achieve?
mesosystem
segment or production
line—operations
how will the work process
perform its functions to achieve
the desired effects (defined by
its inputs and outputs)?
production sub-process:
human-technologyorganization
systems
what is the overall architecture
and what are the physical limits
of the work processes? How
will humans, artificial agents
and support structures be
distributed spatially to achieve
technical functionality and
enable performance?
production cell work:
human-technology interaction
how will technology and users
interact to carry out the work?
how will technology respond to
its users and to the
environment?
tools and
equipment—technological
systems requirements
which concrete technological
enablers (materials, tools,
instructions) are required for
humans and technological
agents and functions to perform
the work tasks?
microsystem:
human-machine systems
(overall)
microsystem:
human-machine subsystems
microsystem: machine
systems
3. Unification in Bridging across System Lifecycle Stages
There are opposing views on how to tackle system design, management, and redevelopment, and one of these (the most entrenched) is the fragmented view that rises from
specialization. It has its own risks of inertia, of creating a lot of resistance to change, of
materializing the organizational silos that are at the heart of this fragmented stance. For
an organization to work in practice, having this philosophy in the design of its structure,
requires coordination of language across siloed areas as well as synchronization of goals.
This will in turn eventually lead to a unification where a unified view leads the organization,
the system altogether, to symbiosis and greater agility from the people in the organization,
the people staffing the socio-technical system. Adaptability will be needed; this will benefit
from support to ongoing competence development, which should be at close hand. The
ability to share resources, including skilled workers and production capacity is also an
enabler to be able to implement this unified philosophy, as opposed to the fragmented view.
The following introduces an example that comes from a real company where researchers have come in and have looked at how first line managers do their work. In this
case, the researchers were shedding light on the question ‘what is the activity like on a
day-to-day basis?’ [11]. What was found shows an interesting overlap between theory,
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2022, 5, 95
also an enabler to be able to implement this unified philosophy, as opposed to the fragmented view.
The following introduces an example that comes from a real company where researchers have come in and have looked at how first line managers do their work.
6 ofIn13this
case, the researchers were shedding light on the question ‘what is the activity like on a
day-to-day basis?’ [11]. What was found shows an interesting overlap between theory,
particularly Erik Hollnagel’s [4] perspective of the fragmented view of siloed perspectives
particularly Erik Hollnagel’s [4] perspective of the fragmented view of siloed perspectives
and how these can be leveraged with a decentralized but activated dynamic change manand how these can be leveraged with a decentralized but activated dynamic change management approach. This was seen by the researchers in a real case from manufacturing
agement approach. This was seen by the researchers in a real case from manufacturing
industry (Figure 2); the diagram shows the vertical line of organizational hierarchy in the
industry (Figure 2); the diagram shows the vertical line of organizational hierarchy in
blue ellipses, while the entities represented in pink ellipses represent support that is availthe blue ellipses, while the entities represented in pink ellipses represent support that
able as well as horizontal organizational dimensions in relation to the first line manager
is available as well as horizontal organizational dimensions in relation to the first line
and their department.
manager and their department.
Figure 2. The ecosystem of the first line manager (a case of decentralized proactive change manageFigure 2. The ecosystem of the first line manager (a case of decentralized proactive change management)
(source:
Karltun
et al.et[11]).
ment)
(source:
Karltun
al. [11]).
4. A Situated Activated Dynamic Change Management Perspective
Combining a top-down approach to steering an organization with bottom-up participatory engagement by fostering worker empowerment and trusting relationships potentially
yielding decentralized decision-making, are important pre-requisites to enable change
management that is not only successful but supported by the workforce and relevant to situational as well as long term challenges alike (making it dynamic and responsive). Change
management is increasingly more important, especially when we think about activated
(and proactive), dynamic, situated change management as uncertainty keeps increasing in
many ways. If there is only one thing that we can be certain of for the future is that there
will be plenty of uncertainties in it. Within this reality, an organization and a production and
logistics system will be better off if it is able to cope with that, especially in the operational
management stage, past the design stage. Hence, in the exploitation stage, we can think
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2022, 5, 95
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of this dynamic activated situated change management as a voyage by sea, rather than
a voyage by land and not a voyage by road. Although it is akin to a voyage by sea, but
not a voyage by sea on a motorboat, it is better compared to a voyage by sea on a sailboat,
which is where most of the abilities for skill and competence and situational awareness
and dynamic action come into play in order to react to changing wind currents, as well as
water currents and strategies to actually leverage the wind energy available to propel the
sails in a direction that could be at an angle to the destination and revising those strategies
unknowingly [4]. The price to pay for not acting in a dynamic change management way is
missing targets. It is also the risk of failure, which is paramount. Moreover, what we see in
general is that technological and environmental change are rampant, and we are in a crisis
that we have termed sustainability crisis at large.
It is possible that some of the solutions to the sustainability crisis lie on human values,
given that this is at the origin of the crisis. This begs the question, in the current era,
which equates to the Anthropocene: ‘What values are shaping our production and logistics
systems, in their design and operational management stages?’. As a complement to the
activity centred perspective, consider a value-based perspective as a leveraging tool for
both the design and management phases of the lifecycle of the production and logistics
system. What we have seen in the past and given the history, is that the basis for design, the
blueprints of socio technical systems in the past were very much tied with the assumptions
of simplification and separation to make linear exploitation easy. This was a convenient way
to disregard entanglements [4]. We can no longer blatantly disregard entanglements, given
the current crisis which forces us to see the relationships among seemingly unrelated events,
by taking a wider systems perspective, or rather an open systems perspective. We should
focus as well on what we need in terms of competences, in terms of approach, in terms of
skills to stop ignoring entanglements and get past this simplified, siloed perspective [4]
and get into the unified view of dynamic change management that is situated and in real
time, so more aligned with agile thinking and reconfigurability [12]. This way of looking
at organizations benefits from a socio-technical systems lens in order to be able to bridge
the gap that has been created by a widespread organizational practice of disregarding
entanglements in the first place.
5. A Resilience Engineering Perspective for Value-Driven Organization Design and
Operations Management
A system is resilient if it has a strong ability to sustain and restore its basic functionality
following some event; resilience concerns the capabilities a system needs to respond to
inevitable surprises [13]. Adaptive capacity is the potential for adjusting patterns of
activities to handle future changes in the kinds of events, opportunities and disruptions
experienced. Therefore, adaptive capacities exist before changes and disruptions call upon
those capacities. Adaptive capacity means a system is poised to adapt, it has some readiness
or potential to change how it currently works. Adaptation is not about always changing
the plan, model, or earlier approaches, but about the potential to change plans to continue
to fit changing situations. Resilience is ultimately concerned with what a system can do,
including its capacity [14]: to anticipate (seeing developing signs of trouble ahead to begin
to adapt early and reduce the risk of decompensation), to synchronize (adjusting how
different roles at different levels coordinate their activities to keep pace with tempo of
events and reduce the risk of working at cross purposes), to be ready to respond (developing
deployable and mobilizable response capabilities in advance of surprises and reduce the
risk of brittleness), and for proactive learning (learning about brittleness and sources of
resilient performance before major collapses or accidents occur by studying how surprises
are caught and resolved).
Carl Macrae published in 2019 an organizational resilience framework that also sets
into perspective how the activity is at the front line of action [15]. This is a general
framework (Figure 3) that relates to organizational resilience, but where the frontline
of action is emphasized as the first level of decision making, in terms of the first active
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2022, 5, 95
reduce the risk of brittleness), and for proactive learning (learning about brittleness and
sources of resilient performance before major collapses or accidents occur by studying
how surprises are caught and resolved).
Carl Macrae published in 2019 an organizational resilience framework that also sets
8 of 13
into perspective how the activity is at the front line of action [15]. This is a general framework (Figure 3) that relates to organizational resilience, but where the frontline of action
is emphasized as the first level of decision making, in terms of the first active level of
operational
management,
which is the
situated
where
resilience
situated
level
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which
is thelevel
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whereemerges,
resilienceasemerges,
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as situated resilience at the operational frontline. It involves mobilizing and combining
technical
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socio-technical resources, which might take weeks to years. When we zoom out a further
now step
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how socio-technical
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Figure 3.
3. Moments
Moments of
of Resilience
Resilience (adapted
(adapted from
from [15]).
[15]).
Figure
When
When in
in the
the managing
managing stage
stage of production
production and
and logistic
logistic systems,
systems, leaders
leaders strive
strive to
to look
for
for values
values that
that will
will set
set the
the system
system management
management in a course
course that
that is
is sustainable
sustainable and
and that
that is
is
potentially
potentially leading
leading to
to success.
success. One way to get inspiration for this is to look at biomimicry
or
or bio-inspiration
bio-inspiration [16]
[16] and
and how
how nature
nature has
has solved
solved these
these or similar problems,
problems, by
by examining
examining
natural
natural examples
examples of
of complex
complex adaptive
adaptive systems
systems and
and studying
studying emergence
emergence across
across distinct
distinct
levels
levels of
of system
system functionality
functionality [1].
[1]. In
In doing
doing this
this we
we can
can learn,
learn, and
and we
we can
can apply
apply the
the natural
natural
solutions
to
the
management
of
production
and
logistics
systems
especially
in
how
solutions to the management of production and logistics systems especially in how to
to deal
deal
with
threats
of
saturation
(failing
adaptive
capacity
and
rising
complexity).
There
with threats of saturation (failing adaptive capacity and rising complexity). There have
have
been
socio-technical systems,
been observations
observations done
done in
in nature
nature as
as well
well as
as in
in socio-technical
systems, including
including air
air traffic
traffic
control,
control, emergency
emergency rooms
rooms and
and mission
mission control.
control. These
These have
have led
led us
us also
also to
to think
think about
about the
the
local global paradox, which is tied to this emergent ability or intended competence of
traveling across system levels to create the adaptability and the system behaviour that will
enable dealing with saturation at the current level. Zooming out to step up one level and
get distance from the details, one becomes more universal and sees more localities and
patterns at a distinct granularity level, when one adopts a more global perspective (hence
the paradox).
Observations have been ongoing for several decades and there is now a body of
knowledge that systematizes what kind of disruptions, what kinds of challenges will lead
to emergence of resilience in socio-technical systems like the emergency room, air traffic
control or mission control scenarios. Table 2 shows some of the operational conditions
where it was found that these resilience abilities can be fostered, given the observations.
Tempo and magnitude of challenges refers to where the rate of challenge should be high
enough to allow accumulation of empirical evidence about the effects of engineered change,
as well as the number of challenge events which should be high enough to reinforce the
value of resource sharing. Another dimension is the duration, as well as the character, of
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2022, 5, 95
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challenges; challenges that arise and evolve slowly, are those that are more likely to provide
enough time to devise shared adaptive capacity at the frontline of action. Conversely,
challenges that resolve quickly enough are those that will enable capacity sharing to
become temporary and hence that will foster agile behaviours and agile buffers of capacity
in the system, regarding local resources. Those resources that are shareable or meant to
be shared should be close enough to be useful in responding to a challenge. This is also
related to how long it takes to activate shared resources, which should be able to easily
obtain the situational context that is necessary for them to become effective in dealing with
disruptions or change. Hence, resilience is not only about having the resources and the
capacity, but also about having the ability to empower these resources with information
on a need-to-know basis to become effective. This is what situational context is about—
communicating the right amount of information on a need-to-know basis, as one does not
want to fall into overload or overwhelming of information. When there is communication
as a baseline, it is conducive to sharing resources between different units and the task
environment, which itself should be such that resources that are to be shared can undergo
task interruption without unacceptable loss. And here we are walking towards what human
centred management means—monitoring towards goals and values, such as resilience, with
this approach. In this way, management is then able to anticipate changing disruptions and
opportunities. The whole organization, if properly empowered, can recognize emerging
new vulnerabilities in an increasingly interconnected approach. Monitoring when equipped
with these values is also about supporting adaptive capacity, and it is this adaptive ability
that becomes extensibility. Hence, we should reference resilience as a form of graceful
extensibility, where according to David Woods [17], when we are managing the risk of
saturation, we must do so by networking adaptive units and outmanoeuvring constraints.
To be able do this, we would also benefit in being aware of some basic rules that govern
adaptive systems, by looking at examples from nature and at the patterns that have been
compiled, such as the ones covered by Cook and Long’s [18] observations.
Table 2. Conditions likely to foster resilience actions and abilities, based on empirical studies (adapted
from Cook & Long [18]).
Characteristic
Conditions Conducive to Resilience Engineering
Tempo and magnitude of challenges
rate of challenge is high enough to allow
accumulation of empirical evidence about the effects
of engineered change
challenge events are enough to reinforce the value of
resource sharing
Duration and character of challenges
challenges that arise and evolve slowly enable the
time needed to devise shared adaptive capacity
challenges that resolve quickly enough enable
capacity sharing that is temporary
Local resources
resources to be shared are close enough to be useful
in responding to the challenge
resources to be shared can easily obtain the
situational context needed to be effective
Communication
communication between units is conducive to
sharing resources
Task environment
resources to be shared can undergo task interruption
without unacceptable loss
In summary, graceful extensibility or resilience as graceful extensibility [17] is the ability of a system to extend its capacity to adapt when surprise events challenge its boundaries.
In any adaptive universe, such as the universe where socio-technical systems and in particular, production and logistics systems, play out, resources are always finite, but change
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2022, 5, 95
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continues. This will prompt us to think about critical abilities for managing resiliently to
attain resilient system behaviours and configurations. In managing for resilience, one needs
to be able to revise earlier models and methods to recognize emerging new vulnerabilities
as interconnections change and to be able to synchronize activities over multiple roles and
layers of a network to scale responses to the scope of challenges. This is about meeting the
challenges. We also need to be able to anticipate challenges ahead to recognize emerging
new challenges, vulnerabilities and threats before saturation occurs. This requires being on
the lookout, expecting the possibility of saturation. Altogether this will lead to a decentralized, transparent, and agile, empowered, supported socio-technical system that is in fact,
human-centred.
6. Discussion
Systems thinking is suited to support understanding of complex adaptive systems,
where industrial systems are included. The suitability of the approach (considering entanglements, as well as open system boundaries exchanging material and communicating
information with the environment), has however not yet translated into its pervasiveness.
The systems thinking stance might be still looked upon by many as counter-intuitive,
especially given the prevailing (and even hegemonic until recently) reductionist paradigm
which has infused science and scientific disciplines for many centuries. The level of entanglements across distinct disciplines is however astounding, and it cannot be ignored when
the challenges inherent in the sustainability crisis are themselves mutually dependent,
necessitating a change in paradigm, akin to a Kuhnian revolution in science [19]. The
contribution essayed in this conceptual article is targeted towards supporting the paradigm
shift that is warranted in the complex application domain of industrial systems’ engineering
from the fragmented view towards unification. As daunting as the task may sound, the
contribution provided herein is primarily placed within the approach demonstrated of
articulating multiple contributions from distinct traditions in a tangible, actionable set of
guidelines targeted at industrial systems’ design and management aiming resilience.
To summarize the values extracted from the selected literature for human-centred
design and management of industrial or production and logistics systems, we place participatory activity centred design and management as a top management (leadership) infused
value, which reverberates across the organization to operations and management of operations. Moreover, we emphasize the values of decentralized, empowered, supported and
responsible. This requires a multiple level systems perspective, which traverses horizontal
and vertical organizational boundaries to develop a unified view, which is the foundation
to enable situated active dynamic change management. The focus is on integrating and
bridging across skill sets and delegating decision making. Moreover, trust needs to be
built for these delegations of power and decision making to be effective both bottom-up,
top-down and from the middle outwards. Situational awareness [20] is also a key element
to enable this decentralized decision-making agility, as well as sharing of common goals.
As a summary for opportunities in human-centred design and management of production and logistics systems, we have put together key vectors that will together support this
endeavour with a focus on the challenge of sustaining resilience (Figure 4). The first factor
(eight o’clock vector) is proactively valuing human centred as sustainable and resilient,
encompassing all the various levels that we can relate to in terms of human activity starting
from the physical, the cognitive and going on to the information dimension, as well as
the interpersonal, collaborative dimensions. Practicing resilience as graceful extensibility
(six o’clock vector) implies that rather than looking as human beings as mere resources,
organizational leadership starts to look at employees as complex, adaptive parts of a system
that can self-regulate in a way that could create the capacity and the decision-making power
that is needed to fight challenges at the front end.
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2022, 5, 95
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Appl. Syst. Innov. 2022, 5, 95
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Practice
resilience as
graceful
extensibility
Figure 4. Summary of suggested key vectors that can support the endeavour of sustaining humancentred design and management of production and logistics systems for resilience (source: author).
Figure 4. Summary of suggested key vectors that can support the endeavour of sustaining humancentred design
and management
of (four
production
and
logistics
systems
resilience
Synchronizing
functions
o’clock
vector
in Figure
4)for
that
implies (source:
having author).
a dynamic
alignment of goals to avoid having functions inside the system working at cross-purposes
Synchronizing
functions
(four
o’clock
vector
in Figure they
4) that
implies
having
a dy- or
with
each other because
they
have
not been
actualized,
have
not been
updated
namic
alignment
of
goals
to
avoid
having
functions
inside
the
system
working
at
crosssynchronized onto what the entire system together is trying to achieve. If that can be done,
purposes
with each other because
they havethen
not we
been
actualized,
they have not
been
upif that synchronization
can be achieved,
can
see an organization
march
together
dated
or
synchronized
onto
what
the
entire
system
together
is
trying
to
achieve.
If
that
towards a common goal, rather than people walking in seemingly random uncoordinated
candirections
be done, inside
if that the
synchronization
be achieved,
then
canwithin
see an the
organization
organization.can
Monitoring
across
andwe
from
system (two
march
together
towards
a
common
goal,
rather
than
people
walking
in
seemingly
random
o’clock vector in Figure 4) implies that rather than holding to a mindset where the
top level,
uncoordinated
directions
inside
the
organization.
Monitoring
across
and
from
within
the
top management or leadership view, makes all the important decisions, active delegation
system
(two o’clock
vector
in Figure This
4) implies
thatcontingent
rather thanon
holding
to aempowerment,
mindset where as
of decision
making
is practiced.
it is also
trust and
thewell
top level,
top
management
or
leadership
view,
makes
all
the
important
decisions,
as the competence development that will enable the organization to build
itselfacup in
tiveterms
delegation
of
decision
making
is
practiced.
This
it
is
also
contingent
on
trust
and
of competencies, in terms of abilities from the bottom upwards and from the eminside,
powerment,
as well
as the
competence
development
thatthe
willchallenges
enable thelie.
organization
towards the
outside,
towards
the boundaries
where
To achievetothis
build
itself
up
in
terms
of
competencies,
in
terms
of
abilities
from
the
bottom
upwards
requires a set of values, and it needs active leadership to set and disseminate those
values
and(ten
from
the inside,
theorganization
outside, towards
the boundaries
where
challenges
o’clock
vector)towards
across the
and throughout
the stages
of the
its lifecycle.
That
lie.isTowhere
achieve
this requires
a set of values,
and role
it needs
active
leadership to set
and disleading
and empowering
has a key
to play
in human-centred
design
of not
seminate
those values
(ten o’clock
vector)
the organization
and throughout
the
only logistics
and production
systems,
butacross
also socio-technical
systems
at large.
stages of its lifecycle. That is where leading and empowering has a key role to play in
7. Conclusions
human-centred
design of not only logistics and production systems, but also socio-technical systems
at large.
This article
reviews a set of recent human factors developments, selected based on
their potential to advance sustainability in industrial systems, including an activity-centred
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2022, 5, 95
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design perspective of production systems, and a unified and entangled view on organizational goals yielding a dynamic change approach to socio-technical systems management.
The cross-pollination of the human factors developments resulted in a proposal of combined key organizational vectors that can mutually leverage and sustain human-centred
design and management of industrial systems for resilience.
The study reported in this article does not consist of a systematic literature review
within any of the multiple topics covered, at the risk of having become unmanageable
and unfulfillable in practice. The developments that are covered in the article are hence
not exhaustive, by any means, and are to a great extent dependent on the exposure that
the author has been subjected to and actively chosen, in pursuing his own scholarly
progressive path and establishing a referential network and conceptual framework. This is
hence an inherent limitation, which may not be unique to this conceptual article, in that the
underlying selection aspects also border, to a non-negligible degree, an autobiographically
dependent narrative.
Future work is required to advance the practical application of the conceptual results
attained, with a focus on co-creating tools with industrial partners and practical applications
reaping the benefits from the insights communicated in this article. In combination, practical
applicability of the key vectors presented argues for a clear identification of the values
and at what levels in the parametric decomposition the system is demonstrating to be
operating in, and what is the system leadership’s intention, and ability to steer towards
correction, adapting to stay on course (or devising a new approach and new route, or
different destination), intensifying, reducing, or coupling or decoupling across values in
pursuit of symbiosis that leads to emergence of a new level of fulfilment of targets, goals
and aim in the quest for sustainability and resilience.
A key managerial implication of the current study complements the truism that in
order to deal with change, one ought to position oneself ahead of the change; this translates
in the terms of the current article as accelerating the transition from a fragmented view
stance (separating subsystems into silos) towards a unified view that is inherently supporting dynamic, responsive and coordinated action. Moreover, the key vectors proposed
as a result of juxtaposing the recent human-centred developments reviewed in this study,
shown in the previous section (Figure 4), when used as guidelines by top management and
infused pervasively into the system’s design, management and reconfiguration lifecycle
stages, provide a means of orchestration across previously siloed subsystems. It is expected
that transforming the open systems stance into actionable leadership practice will enable
reaping the benefits promised by the promoters of the unified view.
Problem understanding is a crucial component in the process of devising effective
solutions. This article presents actionable guidelines that support dynamic development
of context fitting system solutions to complex problems in industrial systems. It is expected that the combined key organizational vectors convened in this article for mutually
leveraging and sustaining human-centred design and management of industrial systems
for resilience, may assist decision-makers within complex systems and organizations to
broaden their scope of understanding of the entanglements within challenging problems
faced in their steering activity.
Funding: The work reported in this article was partially funded by project Hey-Sun (Human-centred
Industrial and Logistic System Design and Management) sponsored by the Associate Dean for
Research and the Associate Dean for Education at the School of Engineering, Jönköping University as
well as the ReActS (Resilient Action Strategies for First Line Managers) research project funded by
KKS (the Knowledge and Competence Foundation, Sweden).
Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.
Acknowledgments: The author acknowledges the discussions carried out with the researchers,
participants and leaders in project ReActS, inspiring some of the initial thinking underlying this article.
Appl. Syst. Innov. 2022, 5, 95
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Conflicts of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interest.
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