A human-interaction method for analysing design requirements for custom-built decision support tools for production control

A method is presented that can be used to analyse behaviour associated with production control by formally structuring field data collected from the manufacturing environment. The method links the tasks used in controlling production to the environmental factors to various levels of abstraction in regard to ends and means. It is an extension of Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA), which incorporates two different types of analysis: Work Domain Analysis (WDA) and Activity Analysis (AA). WDA uses an abstraction hierarchy (AH) a generic framework for describing goal-oriented systems to describe a system in a way that distinguishes its purposive and physical aspects. WDA is event independent and is quite separate from Activity Analysis (AA), which is a subsequent event dependent analysis of the activity that takes place within a work domain. The discussion lead to the expected benefits in using this method by designers of software tools for production controllers.