Application of a Structured Decision Process for Proper Inclusion of Human Resources in the Design of a Power Unit Support Stand.

A structured design process was applied to the design of the F-16 Aircraft Emergency Power Unit EPU Service Stand. Explicit steps in the accomplishment of a set of candidate systems, development of a multi-attribute criteria function along with the attendant parameters and their feasible ranges, and the ordinal ranking of the candidate systems in order of preference were accomplished. An exploration of the design space was made to identify the parameter values which would yield the maximum theoretic value of the criteria for this design space and the results compared with the highest ranked candidate system. During the design of the Service Stand, no unusual emphasis on human factors was made with the design engineers, but the results indicate strong acceptance of human factors and human resource limitations when the problem definition is adequately structured for the designers. Author