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HF Engineering Support
The TSC team includes team members who continually demonstrate abilities to understand the needs and requirements of current and future Navy operators and maintainers, and to effectively apply that information to concepts and designs for new interactive systems and improvements to existing systems. The TSC Team lead in this functional area is BCI.  
 
BCI has several years experience in the execution of the Aegis Lessons Learned/Fleet Feedback program (N00178-00-C-2003 and N00178-96-D-2007), during which human factors engineers have made numerous ship visits to collect operator and maintainer feedback. These issues are then presented to the Aegis design community and the Program Office.  
 
As a part of the ONR-sponsored Manning Affordability Initiative (N00178-96-D-2007 and N00178-00-C-2003), BCI was tasked to identify how human factors engineering processes should ideally interact with systems engineering processes, and this work was subsequently published as both an NSWC Dahlgren technical report and as an appendix to the July 2000 International Council on Systems Engineering- Systems Engineering Handbook. BCI also performed usability testing on the design tools and data repository of the Human-Centered Design Environment.  
 
BCI has conducted scientific research experiments to quantify how advanced displays and automation support impact operator performance, efficiency, and error rates. Sponsored by ONR through NSWC Dahlgren (N00178-00-C-2003), BCI carried out an experiment that demonstrated that watch turnover automation can produce significant time savings over manual processes. This same research initiative included an assessment of operator performance for common tasks with both 2D and 3D displays. This research showed that Navy tactical operators may perform worse on some tasks if they are provided with 3D displays. A paper describing this effort was awarded the best paper prize in the Human-Systems Integration category at the 2002 Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation, and Education Conference.  
 
Not only does BCI have significant experience in developing and evaluating concepts for future Navy systems, but we also have evaluated current systems and developed recommendations. BCI was tasked by PMS 400B (N00178-00-C-2003) to evaluate Baseline 6 Phase 3 of the Aegis combat system and to produce recommendations for human-machine interface improvements. The evaluation incorporated empirical measurement and predictive modeling of operator performance on common tasks. Recommendations included several changes to improve the ease of use and stability of the system to benefit operator performance.  
 
In addition, BCI has been supporting Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems and NSWC Dahlgren (N00178-00-C-2003) with the common console initiative, and specifically consoles for the CVN 77 Aircraft Carrier-Tactical Support Center. BCI’s Key person in this area is John J. Winters.  
 
EG&G has provided human factors engineering support for the graphical user interface (GUI) design of various interactive web-based applications using HTML and Flash. Specific examples include the EA-6B Interactive Technical Data Center and the CSA MK 2 inventory control database tool designed for tracking acoustic device countermeasure (ADC) inventory levels.  
 
EG&G also provides human factors engineering support to developmental and experimental Navy and Marine Corps weapon systems and weapon control systems in the field of system safety engineering in order to determine the level of risk associated with those systems. Pertinent Contracts: N00024-01-D-7019 and N00164_98-D-0020.  		 Functional Areas: